


Jess, The Real Girl

by DreamsOfSleep



Series: All The Real Girls AU [1]
Category: All The Real Girls, New Girl
Genre: Cheating, Crossover, Developing Relationship, F/M, Falling In Love, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Self-Harm, Womanizer, double standards, moderate smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-07-19 04:30:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 25,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7344979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamsOfSleep/pseuds/DreamsOfSleep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick Miller had given up on life and love. He had dropped out of law school and moved back to the small town he grew up in, working at the local dive bar and sleeping around with all the girls, looking to fill the emptiness of the endless days ahead of him. But then he met Jess and his life began again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Going Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Icouldhavebeenyourgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Icouldhavebeenyourgirl/gifts).



> For my reader Icouldhavebeenyourgirl*. This is a crossover fic for "New Girl" and the David Gordon Green movie "All The Real Girls" featuring Nick Miller in the role of Paul and Jess in the role of Noel. Thanks for reminding me this movie existed! I changed the ending for you to make it less open-ended. Hope you enjoy it!
> 
> *Apologies for getting the attribution wrong but realized it when I went to re-read comments on "Orphans"

He wasn’t supposed to go back.

He knew that, but he had been sitting in his apartment on the night Caroline had left him and he had just wanted to be the guy he used to be in high school. That confident guy with his whole life ahead of him, instead of this miserable loser who had dropped out of law school and just got dumped by the girl who he thought had been the love of his life.

_‘You can never go back,’_ his traitorous brain had said. 

_‘Maybe I can,’_ Nick had replied back in his mind. He knew it was a lie, but he also knew everyone lies to themselves. You are what you believe yourself to be and this felt like a pretty good lie to him, a pretty good delusion to live in. 

So he had packed up his bags and flew back to that sleepy Southern town he grew up in. The place where everyone knows your name and nobody ever leaves for something better. 


	2. Don't Hate The Player

He’s been back in town for about six months and it feels like he never left. College and law school both seem like a distant memory, a bad fever dream he had once. It feels comfortable to never want to be more than you are. Just to live day to day and not have to think about the future.

\---

He spends a lot of time hanging out with his old buddies from high school. Most of them stayed in town and got manufacturing jobs at the two remaining factories: the local textile mill, the medical supply company. Some of them work on their family farms living with generations of their own families, moms and dads and siblings and uncles and aunts and cousins and grandparents. Some of them found work at the small local businesses on Main Street, still the lifeblood of the community: the grocery store, the general store, the local diner, the local bar.

A lot of the people he knew from high school are married with kids now, living the same lives of quiet desperation their parents did. They didn’t go to college. They married whoever they got pregnant or got them pregnant first in high school and just stayed behind. He and his best friend Schmidt were some of the few people who went away to college, but look at them now, back in exactly the same place. They probably should have just stayed here instead of wasting all that time and money trying to be something they weren’t, something they could never be. Their nicknames are “College” and “Law School” even though they had both dropped out. In Nick’s experience people tend to want to put you in a box, label you by your most obvious characteristics and ignore the rest of you. It used to annoy him, make him chafe to prove everyone wrong, but now it feels nice, like a safety net for his life so he never has to think about who or what he is. 

He runs with a group of guys that include his best friends Schmidt and Winston who he grew up with, along with some guys he went to high school with: Todd, Benjamin, Paul. There isn’t much to do in town so they go around being idiots, raising hell and competing to see who can rack up the most notches on their bedpost. Whenever people pass him or any of his friends on the street, Nick sees the word _troublemaker_ in their eyes, hears them whisper it under their breaths. He likes it; it makes him feel dangerous and powerful the way being out in the world struggling to make his way through college and law school didn’t. 

\---

One of the things his group of friends likes to do is hang out and talk shit about girls. They tell stories about their conquests and try to one up each other with who has the craziest story about getting laid and who has landed the hottest chick. They pick apart the bodies of women, ranking them on breast size and best ass and best blowjob lips. They talk about what girls like in bed and how to get them into bed in the first place, comparing all the girls in town and which ones are ‘easy’ and which ones are not and how the ones that are not just need a little ‘motivation.’ 

Nick knows it’s shitty, but it’s pretty fun to act like a douchebag and not care about other people’s feelings, especially after Caroline. He doesn’t even believe in a number system or any kind of ranking system for girls. He just likes girls, all types of girls, and he knows attraction and chemistry are more than just the parts of a person you can see. It’s not something you can put into words; it’s just something you feel when you are standing in a room right next to a person and you look at her and she looks at you and _bam_ it hits you like a freight train. 

He thinks they’re all just afraid of something real. He knows they’re all just talk; they’re not exactly male Adonises themselves. None of them are particularly rich or handsome or have "good personalities" or even treat the girls that nice. Any of them are lucky any girls even look at them the way they salivate over them like animals. But it’s slim pickings in this town so the girls still give in, even though they would never give them the time of day anywhere else. Nick thinks him being an almost-lawyer makes girls like him because they can picture a future with him, even though he dropped out of law school and now just works at the local bar in town and really doesn’t have a future or think about it at all. 

\---

Nick knows this isn’t who he really is. This is who he used to be in high school when he thought this is what guys were supposed to act like. His dad had already left by then and he had to be “the man of the house” and make sure the bills were paid and take care of his younger brother Jamie while his Ma worked two jobs, trying to save up for college for both of them to get them the hell out of dodge. Treating girls like objects had just been a way to blow off steam back then. It was a way to be in control the way he wasn’t in the rest of his life. Being able to manipulate how girls felt about him by saying what they wanted to hear to get sex, even though he never believed half the lies that came out of his mouth. It was stupid but it made other guys respect him and he had wanted to be a _man_ the way his dad wasn’t. 

But then he had gone off to college and he had learned what respect truly meant. That being a man meant owning your choices, the way you could choose to be what you are and not what other people made you out to be. He had looked at himself in the mirror and he had hated himself for stomping over other people’s feelings the way his dad did to him. For using people, for treating girls as disposable when he would never do that to his Ma or anyone else he cared about in his life. So he had decided to change and be better. 

Then he had met Caroline and he finally had a real relationship for the first time in his life. But she left him when he dropped out of law school and told her he didn’t want to be a lawyer. She told him he had wasted her time. It confused him; he couldn’t see how it was a waste of time because he still loved her through all of it and he would have been there for her through anything, but she couldn’t feel the same way back. He would have done anything to make her happy, but it didn't seem to matter that much to her whether he was happy or not. She wanted to live in the suburbs in a big house with the white picket fence and two cars in the driveway and the 2.5 kids who went to private school and all these _things_ out of life that he could never get for her. He loved her, but he wasn't that guy and he would never be that guy. Ironically, she ended up breaking his heart, instead of the other way around. He thinks it was karmic retribution for how he had broken the hearts of dozens of girls in the past, but it had still hurt.

It felt easier to turn back into who he was before than to try for something real again with someone else after putting himself way out there with Caroline. It was easier to just fill the void with sex. Sex always felt really good, at least temporarily, even though it made him feel like shit immediately afterwards. Same reason he drinks, Nick thinks. Bad decisions all around. He knows dropping out of law school was the right choice; he would have made a terrible lawyer. 

\---

One day Nick and his friends are getting lunch at the local diner and Todd tries to nonchalantly bring up that Schmidt’s sister Jess is coming back to town. Nick sees that predatory spark in him. All the other guys know it’s a douchebag move…too far over the line. _You don’t hit on your friends’ sisters._ That’s just part of the guy code. _Family is off limits._ It makes you cross over from being a douchebag to being a perv who would dick over your friends just for a little action. Schmidt glares daggers at Todd but is too nice to say anything to Todd directly to get him to shut up. The other guys shift in their seats uncomfortably but don’t say anything either. None of them can really say anything since this is standard Todd behavior and they’ve all talked this way about other girls before. 

Todd starts talking about how Schmidt’s sister is all “grown up” now and Nick can’t help the look of disgust that passes over his face. Pretty girls that are around the same age as them and not related to any of them are fair game. But once you start talking about young girls, teenagers, that’s when it starts feeling gross and sort of rape-y. Nick doesn’t want to be into a girl that isn’t into him, to go after some girl who doesn’t know any better about what they are, about what all men are capable of. He never tricks girls into sleeping with him, even though that’s what the other guys think he does. It’s all about finding that spark of mutual attraction. One good thing about going to law school is it made him really good at observing people. It’s not as hard as all the guys made it out to be. It’s mainly just listening to people, showing an interest in them, focusing on someone like they are the only person in the room. Most people don’t get that in their lives, not anywhere, but especially not here in this Podunk town where no one is special and there is never any hope for something more. 

Nick breathes a sigh of relief when Todd gets distracted by the pretty waitress and drops the topic of Schmidt’s sister. The game is on again for all of them to win over the pretty girl. Nick goes for subtle...commiserating with her over the busy lunch rush and complimenting her on her eyes and her smile, but not being overtly sexual. He knows girls don’t like that; it makes them immediately put up their shields. No one likes being used so you at least need to pretend you’re not just interested in that one thing, even though you both know that you are both interested in that one thing. It’s just part of the game. He draws the waitress in and she starts playing with her hair while looking at him. It’s one of the sure signs that he’s in. Once the other guys see that the waitress likes him, they fall all over themselves trying to impress her. They try to order ‘manly’ things like extra bacon and black coffee, but then Winston screws up the vibe by ordering hamburger and cottage cheese and none of them win the waitress. 

Nick bites back a smile. Winston is a good guy but he has no game. At least he’s doing a little better now that he’s been hanging out with Nick. He used to shout out weird things to pretty girls like, _“What your name is?”_ and _“How that thing do?”_. Nick thinks about taking Winston out again to find him a girl to love him up. One of the nice ones and not a mean bad girl like the kind Nick usually takes home that would probably make Winston cry. Winston should be a shoo-in for most girls in this town. He’s decent-looking and he probably has the best job out of all of them working at the local sheriff’s office, but he’s never been able to work the angles. He’s too good of a guy, too honest like some friendly puppy dog begging girls to like him. The last time Winston went out with Nick to pick up chicks, Nick had to mouth _‘be cool’_ behind him the entire time and feed him lines. He hadn’t struck out though and had gotten some Asian chick’s number so Nick still counts it as a victory. It’s pretty fun helping his friends get laid. He actually likes the game more than the sex but he would never tell the other guys that.

\---

When he’s reached his douchebag limit, Nick likes to go down to the park and hang out with that weird, but cool Asian guy named Tran who always has the best weed. Nick doesn’t know what it says about him that he’s best friends with his dealer, but he likes Tran a lot. He can talk to him the way he can’t talk to the other guys. Tran doesn’t judge him the way other people in the town do. Even though most people are too polite to ask him directly, Nick can see that accusatory look in their eyes asking him, _‘You got out. Why did you come back?’,_ like it was some personal affront that he wasn’t some bigshot city lawyer, some big success by now, even though they never made it out either. Tran just nods at whatever Nick tells him like it’s really important and the weed makes them talk about all the great secrets of the universe. 

They talk about chaos theory a lot. It fascinates Nick at the same time that it scares him, how a damn butterfly can flap its wings and change your entire life. It’s not something Nick likes to think about too deeply. He likes to feel like he is in control of his own destiny, not some fickle finger of fate, although the way his life has turned out, he might as well hand control over to someone else. Nick knows he’s a shitty decision maker; he can’t make a good decision to save his life, just like law school, just like Caroline or every single relationship he’s ever been in. He thinks about Caroline and never letting any girl hurt him like that again. He knows he’s just hiding in this town, not dealing with the real problems in his life, not thinking about the future even though he knows he can’t stay here forever. That if he chooses to stay here, he’ll never become the person he was meant to be.

He’s still lonely, treading water, waiting for his real life to begin. 


	3. Her

He was hanging out with Schmidt trying to fix Schmidt’s piece of shit truck that was on the fritz again. The other guys weren’t around and Winston was at work so it was just the two of them.

Nick thinks Schmidt reaches his douchebag limit sometimes too. It’s nice just to hang out and not have to pretend to be macho or one-up each other with stories about chasing girls. When it’s just the two of them (and sometimes Winston), they talk about real things. Schmidt worries about the slowdown in business at the medical supply company where he is a foreman, worries that corporate is going to shut down the factory and lay everyone off. Nick talks about his Ma, about thinking she might be sick because she keeps forgetting things even though she says it’s just because she’s getting old. They talk about college and law school and what the world was like when they were Out There and what it still might be like if they ever decide to go back. 

Schmidt doesn’t know shit about cars so he just holds the flashlight while Nick tinkers under the hood. Nick doesn’t know that much about cars either, but he seems to have a natural talent for ‘fancy-fixing’ things. He used to fancy-fix things around the house all the time after his dad left. They were never rich even when his dad was still around, always struggling to get by, so you either had to learn to fix shit or do without. Nick really likes working with his hands. He thinks fleetingly about becoming a mechanic, but thinks it would just turn out like law school. He always gets really excited to start something new but has a tendency to crash and burn once he is in the middle of it. Some things should just stay hobbies.

Nick hears a car pull up. Schmidt’s mom Joan home with the groceries. Schmidt goes to help her while Nick continues working on the truck. He hears footsteps behind him and holds the flashlight out again without looking up. “That was fast,” he says. 

A pair of small, delicate hands, decidedly not Schmidt’s hands, grab the flashlight. “Hi, Nick,” he hears in a rich, melodious, feminine tone. He wasn’t expecting that and it makes him stand up straight and bump his head hard on the open hood. _Ouch._ He sees stars. He clutches his head with his hand and grimaces in pain.

He looks over at the girl standing beside him. “I’m so sorry! Are you okay?” She looks at him in concern. She reaches out and places her hand over his own on his head.

She is standing close to him and when he looks into her brilliant blue eyes for the first time, he knows she is _The One, his soulmate, the love of his life._ It hits him like a lightning bolt. He feels it instantaneously through his whole body. His heart starts going a mile a minute like it is trying to leap out of his chest. It was like waking up. He had been asleep his whole life up until that moment. He just _knows_ , the way you know something is true down to the marrow of your bones. It’s like gravity or the air you breathe, one of the immutable truths of the universe. It hadn’t been Caroline at all or any of the other girls. _It’s her._ He didn’t know he even still believed in The One or love or anything at all up until that point, if he ever did. 

He immediately regrets all the other girls he has ever slept with. He realizes that she was the one he should have been saving all his “brownie points” for all along. 

He stares at her a beat too long before his brain remembers how to form words. “I’m okay,” he says to her. He tries to speak normally but it comes out in a whisper.

“I’m Jess. Schmidt’s sister. Do you remember me?”

Even though Nick grew up with Schmidt, he had never actually met her before face-to-face. He remembers a dark-haired, blue-eyed kid running around Schmidt’s house whenever he would come over, a whirlwind of colorful vintage skirts and ribbons out of the corner of his eye, but he never paid much attention to her back then. He was older than her and trying to be tough and cool so she was just part of the background noise. Schmidt never liked hanging out much at his house anyway. They would always go hang out at the diner or the park or the quarry or try and sneak into the local bar. Schmidt was trying to be “man of the house” too after his dad Gavin split so he was over-protective of his sister and never let any of his guy friends meet her. Nick was the same way with his younger brother Jamie. They were both trying to keep their siblings out of trouble, even though both Schmidt and Nick pretty much were leaders of the troublemakers and started a lot of that shit themselves. Schmidt’s mom seemed to worry about that too so she had shipped Jess off to an all girls’ boarding school shortly after Schmidt’s dad left and Nick never got a chance to meet her. Schmidt never talked about his sister or any of his family much so it was easy for Nick to forget that Schmidt wasn’t an only child.

“Sorry,” Nick said. “I don’t remember you." _He sure as hell would have remembered meeting someone like her._ "How do you know me?”

“Schmidt talks about you all the time.”

“Good things, I hope,” he says half-joking, half-serious. He hopes that she didn’t hear about his reputation, that she can just see him first (the real him, a clean slate) and not what everyone else thinks of him.

She laughs at that. She has a really nice laugh. _Musical and infectious._ He can’t help laughing along with her. Joy makes light dance behind her eyes, captivating him. Her hand is still resting on his on top of his head. The heat of her palm sears into his skin.

Schmidt comes back out of the house after helping his mom with the groceries and approaches them. “Go inside and eat lunch, Jess,” Schmidt says to her.

She takes her hand off of his and shyly tucks her hair behind her ears. “Sorry again, Nick. I’ll see you around.” Nick watches her go.

Schmidt eyes him suspiciously. “What was all that about? What were you guys talking about?”

“Nothing, Schmidt. I just told her that you were my best friend.”

Schmidt breaks into a grin at that and relaxes. He ruffles Nick’s hair affectionately. They go back to fixing Schmidt’s truck in companionable silence.

Nick feels guilty for not telling Schmidt about what he’s currently thinking about his sister because they are best friends and they always tell each other everything, but he knows Schmidt wouldn’t understand. Hell, Nick barely understands it himself and he doesn’t even know if he’s going to act on it yet so he keeps his mouth shut. What Schmidt doesn’t know can’t hurt him. 


	4. Hidden Spaces

Schmidt invites Nick and Winston to a welcome home party for his sister Jess. 

Nick can see that Schmidt really didn’t want to invite them, but his mom told him to bring some “nice kids from town” so he had to. His mom wanted Schmidt to help Jess make some new friends since she hadn’t been back here in forever and didn’t know anybody. 

“Don’t tell the other guys about the party,” Schmidt says dead seriously. Nick gets it. If he had a sister, he wouldn’t want to introduce her to Todd, Benjamin, or Paul either.

\---

Nick gets all dressed up in a suit and tie even though Schmidt doesn’t tell him to. It felt like the right thing to do. Even though they had been best friends as far back as Nick can remember, Schmidt never invited him to any of his family gatherings or to meet any of his family at all so this felt important and Nick wanted to make a good impression.

When Nick gets to the party, he can see that Schmidt’s whole family is there. _Aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents_ …his entire extended family from out of town. Nick thought it was just going to be a small get-together; he didn’t realize Schmidt had such a large family. He starts to feel the pressure; he’s really glad he decided to wear a suit and not look like an unemployed bum today.

He finds Schmidt in the kitchen cooking at the stove. Nick pauses in the doorway of the kitchen and just stares at Schmidt’s back for a few minutes in confusion. Every open space is filled with food. The countertops are filled with appetizers: _croissants and mini quiches and stuffed mushrooms and crab puffs._ The kitchen table is overflowing with _roast beef and brisket and lamb chops and lasagna and casseroles._ The side tables hold desserts and pastries: _homemade pies and cakes and cookies and brownies and little fruit tarts._ It looks like there is an entire six-course meal in here enough to feed 50 people and Schmidt doesn’t even look half done yet. He didn’t even know Schmidt knew how to cook anything besides ramen, which is all they ate when they were living together as broke college students. It’s like some bizarro version of Schmidt has taken over his friend’s body. They might have been best friends but evidently there was a lot about Schmidt that Nick didn’t know about yet.

Schmidt turns around and sees Nick. “There you are,” he breathes out in relief. He hands him a large platter of cucumber sandwiches sliced on the diagonal with the crusts cut off. _‘Fancy,’_ Nick thinks. 

“Go pass these around,” Schmidt says. “Mingle. Talk to people.” He pauses and puts on his stern face. “Best behavior, Nick,” he warns him. “Don’t make me regret this.”

Nick throws him a jaunty salute. “Relax, Schmidt,” he says. “I got this.” 

\---

He walks into the living room and says hi to Schmidt’s mom first to make sure and get his friend brownie points for showing up. She introduces him to some of Schmidt’s relatives. They all seem to know him. Apparently Schmidt talks about him all the time, just like Jess said. They keep asking him about law school. Guess Schmidt didn’t tell them that he dropped out. He pastes on a smile and goes along with it, pretending he’s still a law student. He gives anyone that asks him for it free legal advice that he is pretty sure is wrong, but sounds good and believable.

He sees Winston in the far corner fenced in by a group of Schmidt’s aunts. He must have come directly from work because he is still wearing his sheriff’s uniform. The aunts keep pinching his cheeks and telling him what an adorable police officer he makes. Winston is unfailingly polite to them but his eyes meet Nick’s from across the room and they say, _‘Help me.’_ Nick gives him an apologetic shrug back. _Every man for himself._

A few kids chase each other through the house, running around the legs of the adults at the party. A twin boy and girl pull on Nick’s arms to join them, but Schmidt throws him a dirty look from across the room and shakes his head at him. They all look at Schmidt and then back at each other. Nick smiles apologetically at the kids’ disappointed faces and ruffles their hair. They go scampering off. _‘Damn, I wonder who pissed in Schmidt’s Cheerios this morning?,’_ Nick thinks. 

Nick starts mixing drinks for the adults at the corner bar to be helpful. After a while, Schmidt comes over and leans in to tell him to start watering them down because some of his relatives were getting rowdy. Nick furrows his brow at Schmidt. He never thought he would live to see the day when _Schmidt_ would be the one to tell someone to stop drinking when they were the ones that usually got shitfaced at every opportunity. The adults don’t seem that out of control to him; the flowing alcohol just seemed to make everybody more relaxed and comfortable with each other (i.e. turning this dull ‘family party’ into a party people would actually want to go to). 

Nick tries to joke around with Schmidt to lighten the mood. “It looks like you need a drink the most out of all the people in this room,” Nick quips, but Schmidt just gets a pinched look on his face and doesn’t laugh like he usually would. Schmidt was being really uptight and not fun; Nick thinks this must be Responsible Schmidt. His family really stresses Schmidt out; Nick now knows why Schmidt never let him meet them. 

\---

Nick recognizes a couple of women at the party from the bar where he works. _Townies._ Schmidt must have invited them in a fit of desperation to fill out his quota of “nice kids from town” that his mom told him to bring to the party. They’re giving him the eyes, inviting him in. Any other time he would probably go over there and flirt with them, try to get their numbers, try to get them to meet up with him later, but Schmidt told him to behave so he doesn’t take the bait and gives them a wide berth to avoid temptation.

There are a few girls here that Nick doesn’t know that don’t look related to Schmidt. They are young and blonde and that unique mix of shy and overconfident in the way only teenagers can be. _‘Must be friends of Jess’s from boarding school,’_ Nick thinks. They are all gathered in a tight-knit group around the punch bowl. They keep looking at him and then away, giggling behind their hands to one another. He knows how these things usually go. They would send over the most confident girl to try and flirt with him, drawn to the danger of the older, more experienced man he represents, rebelling against their parents and trying on their newfound sexuality. It always made him uncomfortable, feeling like the creepy older guy looking at these girls. He didn’t want to make Schmidt mad at him for getting into a compromising situation so he avoids them too. 

He does a couple rounds around the party. His face starts to hurt from fake-smiling. He can feel himself getting irritated from keeping up the ruse of being a law student. The insistent conversation of Schmidt’s numerous relatives is wearing on him. He hasn’t seen Jess anywhere. Maybe she’s hiding somewhere. _‘Smart girl,’_ Nick thinks.

He furtively starts sidling into the hall away from the main party. He told Schmidt he would stay until the end and help him clean up so he can’t leave, but that doesn’t mean he can’t go hide somewhere for a while. He’s been here for over an hour so he doesn’t think Schmidt will notice.

He sees a coat closet tucked away in the far corner of the hall. _Sanctuary._

He walks over to it and opens the closet door. He comes face-to-face with those brilliant blue eyes again. She is sitting on the ground with her knees drawn up to her chest nestled within the hanging coats. She puts her index finger to her lips. 

He looks over his shoulder but no one is paying any attention to him. He walks into the closet and sits down next to her, pulling the door shut behind him.

\---

They sit in silence for a while. It should feel awkward since they don’t know each other at all, but for some reason it feels really comfortable to be sitting next to her like this. They listen to the distant chatter of the party outside the door.

After a while she breaks the silence by saying, “I hate parties.”

He turns his head to look at her. There is enough light spilling in from the crack under the door so he can still make out her face. “Me too,” he replies.

“Schmidt asked you to come, didn’t he?” she sighs in exasperation. “He keeps trying to babysit me. I’ve been cooped up in the house for weeks. He won’t let me out of the house to do anything. He says it’s too dangerous out there, that I don’t know how to take care of myself.”

“I don’t know how dangerous a small town with one main road could be,” she scoffs. “He’s driving me crazy. I haven’t even been in town since I got here.”

Before he can stop himself, Nick asks her, “Want to come out with me later? I’ll show you around.”

She grins at him and says yes.

He smiles back at her. He stands up and opens the door a crack to peek outside. The hall is still empty. “See you later, Jess,” he whispers before he steps back outside. 

As he is walking back down the hallway, Schmidt comes out of the living room and approaches him.

“Have you seen Jess anywhere?” Schmidt asks him. 

“I think I saw her go upstairs,” Nick lies, keeping her hidden away from the world, saving her from the responsible-not-fun version of Schmidt.

Schmidt turns and walks back into the living room.

Nick hears two taps from the closet in thanks. He taps the wall twice back before walking back into the living room and getting swallowed up by the party. 


	5. Late Night Rendezvous

At 2AM, he climbs the oak tree outside her bedroom window and peers in. She appears to be sleeping, her covers pulled up over her head so he can’t see her face. He thinks maybe he just dreamed up that whole exchange at the party and he’s being a creepy perv hanging outside her bedroom window watching her sleep. But he’s already here so he taps on her window anyway and hopes she doesn’t scream bloody murder. She gets up immediately and goes over to open the window. 

“Hi,” she says brightly, excitedly. “I almost thought you weren’t going to show up.”

“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it, Jess,” he says earnestly.

“I’ve never snuck out before,” she says in an exhilarated whisper.

“Don’t worry, I won’t get you in trouble, Jess,” he whispers back. “We’re just going to be gone for a few hours, tops. I’ll get you back home safe and sound before anyone even knows you’re gone.”

He holds out his hands to help her out the window and she places her hands in his. He helps her balance on the roof as she walks to the edge. She hesitates when she gets to the oak tree. 

“Scared of heights?” he asks her.

“A little,” she says.

“Look at me, don’t look down,” he says.

She looks at his face the entire time as she climbs gingerly down the oak tree until she lands safely on the ground. He climbs down agilely after her.

“See? Piece of cake,” he says to her and she gives him a shy, proud smile back. 

They walk side by side in companionable silence towards the town.

\---

They are walking through town at 2AM so everything is closed and shuttered except the 24-hour diner and the local bar. 

He can’t take her into the diner because it’s a small town and people talk. Schmidt would definitely find out he snuck out with Jess and murder him, even though they aren’t doing anything but walking through town. _“Yeah, walking alone with his 18-year old kid sister through town in the middle of the night is ‘not doing anything,’”_ Nick thinks. He knows he’s lying to himself; nothing good happens after 2AM. If nothing was happening, then he would be able to do this in broad daylight with her and be able to tell Schmidt about it. But he rationalizes it away in his mind because nothing physical has happened yet. They are still just two people walking together. Innocent and harmless. Nick’s just being a good guy, acting as the tour guide to someone new in town.

He could sneak her into the local bar, but that seems like a terrible idea too. She’s only 18 and he doesn’t want to get her drunk. Plus, the other guys would be in there since it’s a Friday night. Dealing with Schmidt is one thing, but he doesn’t want the other guys to hit on her either. He shudders as he imagines them pawing at her with their dirty hands, trying to get her to sleep with them like they do with all the girls, treating it as a competition because she's young and new in town. _'Fresh meat. Jailbait,'_ they would leer. He feels protective of her. He tells himself it’s because she’s his best friend's sister, and that’s partially true, but he knows it’s mainly because he is already kind of in love with her, even though he knows he shouldn’t be both because she’s Schmidt’s sister and because she’s way younger than him. There is a six year age difference between them, which might not seem like a lot to some people, but Nick knows there is a world of difference in life experience between 18 and 24. 

\---

They end up walking through the town and past the textile mill together. They’ve been walking along in silence since they left her house. It’s comfortable like it was when they sat in the closet together, but he wonders if this is boring for her. 

“Sorry it’s not very exciting here. Guess Schmidt _was_ trying to protect you from danger. The danger of dying from boredom,” he jokes.

“I’m not bored, Nick,” she replies back. “It’s nice to be out of the house. Plus, I love walking outside at night. It’s so magical like the entire world is a different place. It’s full of possibilities and secrets.”

He smiles at her optimism. “Tell me about you,” he says. “You said Schmidt tells you about me all the time, but I don’t know anything about you.”

She shrugs. “Not much to tell.”

“I’m sure that’s not true, Jess. I mean you didn’t have to grow up here so that already makes you more interesting than 90% of the people in this town.” 

“I went to boarding school in the country in the middle of nowhere, not vacationing in some exotic location like Paris or Tokyo. I bet it was pretty much the same as growing up here, except there were no boys. I’ve never been anywhere or done anything interesting or exciting.” 

“You’re only 18, Jess. Whole life ahead of you to do those things.”

“What were you like when you were 18?”

“What are all guys like at that age? Cocky and overconfident…thinking I knew everything, too smart for my own good. Going off to college, thinking I could take on the whole world.”

“I’m supposed to go off to college in the fall...It's supposed to be this big milestone signifying that I'm an independent adult, but I feel like I’ve just been in boarding school my whole life and I haven’t really done anything, not like other people my age.”

“It’s not a competition, Jess. I’ve ‘done things.’ I went to college, I went to law school, and I still came back. Out there isn’t so great; everyone’s miserable and nobody’s happy. Everyone is chasing something that they think will make them happy, but sometimes you just want to go home…maybe you spend your whole life trying to go home again. I don’t think it’s really about doing all the things everyone else tells you that you should be doing; I think it’s just about trying to be happy where you are.”

He laughs self-consciously and rubs the back of his neck. “Look at me trying to give you life advice. What do I know? I didn’t make it; I dropped out of law school.” He feels embarrassed admitting that to her, but when he looks over at her face, there is no judgment there.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Nick, but I don’t see you as a lawyer-type. Having to put on a suit and tie every day and go down to some drab corporate office in the city? It just seems so dull and boring; that doesn’t seem like you at all.”

He smiles at that. “It seemed exciting at the time, but that’s probably because I grew up here…What do you want to be?”

“Everything,” she says, throwing out her arms to the night sky. “Painter, writer, actor, dancer, singer. I want to make weird art and write bad poetry and I always wanted to sing. Be in a rock band and travel the world. I know it's not realistic, but it's nice to dream.” 

“You can still do all those things, Jess. Like I said, you’re only 18.”

She looks around her at the textile mill, at the dirt road, at the dead grass. “Maybe…or maybe we’re born here in this town and we just end up back here. Getting married, having kids, disappearing into the lives our parents had and having no choice about it.” 

He stops in the middle of the road. She stops and turns to look back at him. He looks into her face backlit by the moon. “You always have a choice, Jess,” he says with conviction. “Even if it doesn’t feel like it.” 

A faint smile appears on her face. “You’re one to talk, Nick. 24 and you don’t think there’s anything left for you out there,” she teases. 

“Well, I’m me…and you’re not, so I think you can still do all those things out there you want to do. World’s wide open for you. I was always a big coward. Yeah I did things, but I was terrified the whole time that I would screw it up until I finally did. But I think you can be brave, braver than me at least. You really can do anything you want, be anything you want to be. It’s actually good that you haven’t done anything yet because you haven’t learned to be afraid yet either. You have no idea of the things that could hurt you, the things you should be scared of. So you can just jump, take your leap of faith in something and not think about it.”

She has a slightly awed expression on her face. "You're a pretty smart guy, Nick," she says.

He blushes slightly at that and looks away from her. "Nah, that's the law school talking," he jokes.

\---

They’ve circled back to her house. Nick is disappointed the night is over, but it’s really late and he thinks it’s probably for the best. He helps her back up the oak tree, across the roof, and back through the window into her room. 

“See? Safe and sound,” he says to her, crouched down and leaning through her window.

“Thanks for taking me out, Nick. I had a really good time.” She hesitates. “Can we do this again sometime? I’d really like to.”

He knows he really shouldn’t, but he wants to see her again too. He doesn’t want this to be his last chance to spend time with her alone, even if all they do is talk. “I’d like that too, Jess. Tomorrow night?”

She smiles and nods.

If she were any other girl, he would probably try to kiss her or even ask her about spending the night, but he doesn’t want to ruin things by making it about something he wants from her or pushing her to give him something more. He just wants this to be a nice time that two people had sharing their lives under the moon and the stars. 

“Night, Jess,” he whispers to her. Their hands are both on the windowsill and their faces are close together. He could lean in and kiss her if he wanted to, but he resists the urge. Instead, he places his hands over hers and squeezes them briefly before letting go. He backs away from her and walks back across the roof as she watches him. He waves to her before climbing back down the tree and walking home. 

When he closes his eyes, he can still see her brilliant blue eyes watching him in the moonlight. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   * "Nothing good happens after 2AM" is a reference to the TV show How I Met Your Mother.
>   * "Everyone's miserable, nobody's happy" is a reference to a Louis CK bit that actually goes "Everything is amazing and nobody's happy."
> 



	6. Life Experience (Make It Count)

The next night, Nick takes her walking in the park. He looks around for Tran but he doesn’t appear to be here tonight. He thinks Jess and Tran would really get along if he introduced them to one other.

They walk along in companionable silence again. He likes that they only talk when they have something meaningful to say and don’t just try to fill the air with inane chatter like so many other people he knows.

After a while, Jess breaks the silence by asking, “When did you have your first kiss?”

He knows this is entering dangerous territory, but it still feels innocent at the moment so he feels comfortable being honest with her.

“13, during a game of Spin-the-Bottle.”

She frowns. “I’m 18 and I’ve barely even been kissed…I kissed a boy once when I was 5 on a dare, but I don’t think that counts.”

“Don’t rush it, Jess. You should wait. Wait for the right person.”

She laughs slightly at that. “Is that something Schmidt told you to say?” she asks him. “Something all adults tell you to do, _‘wait for it,’_ even though everyone else is out there doing things and having all these life experiences while you’re stuck at home not living.”

“Nah…it sounds like that, but it’s actually true. And it’s not just me telling you this because you’re a girl. Everyone says it’s different for girls, that they always regret the ones they kiss while guys always regret the ones they don’t, but I think it’s the same. Everyone has feelings even if they like to pretend that they don’t.” 

“Do you regret any of the girls you have kissed?” 

He looks away from her. “All the time.” 

She’s embarrassed not to have done anything up until this point, but Nick knows he’s the one that should be embarrassed. He wants to tell her that getting all that ‘experience’ isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, that you lose a little bit of yourself every time you do it, but he doesn’t want her to look at him differently. He thinks she doesn’t know about all the other girls yet, how he has treated them, and if she did she wouldn’t want to be around him anymore. He knows that he'll have to tell her someday, but not tonight. He just wants to keep her with him a little while longer. 

He looks back at her. “So wait for someone…make sure it’s really worth it.” 

She doesn’t look like she believes him so he tries a different tactic.

“It’s okay, Jess…think of all the people who have terrible first kisses. You can make yours really great. Kiss somebody who really wants to kiss you back.” _Any guy would be damn lucky to kiss her, but especially if they got to kiss her first._

Jess had been unconsciously pressing her lips together while she was staring at his face and he was talking to her and that felt dangerous. He was glad they were near her house again. He helped her back up the tree, across the roof, and through her window into her room. He reached over and squeezed her hands again like he did that first night. 

“Tomorrow?” she whispered to him. 

“Sure, see you tomorrow, Jess,” he whispered back. 

He held her hands a beat too long before letting go. 

She watched him walk back across the roof to descend the tree again and walk home. 

He couldn’t get that image of her out of his head, _her pressing her lips together and staring up at him,_ while he was talking about how her first kiss should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a gif set on Tumblr of Jess pressing her lips together every time she is thinking about Nick kissing her and I thought that was a cute character detail to put in. ([Link To Gif Set](http://reyz13.tumblr.com/post/146715691093/rockinpolkadots-jakesjohnson-jess-trying-to))


	7. First Kiss

It starts to become this 'thing' they do. After he gets off from working at the bar, he sneaks up to her window and taps on it. She opens it and he helps her across the roof and down the tree and they go walking through the empty streets of the town at night talking about everything and nothing. 

He keeps telling himself _nothing is happening, nothing is going on_ even though he knows it’s a lie, because it’s the only way he can make it through the day. It’s eating him up inside to have to keep pretending to be all these different versions of himself to all the different people in his life. He used to be two people and now he’s three: Regular Nick who hangs out with Schmidt and Winston and treats his Ma nice and wants a real relationship and a real job Out There someday, Douchebag Nick who hangs out with the guys and chases the girls and doesn’t care who he hurts at all, and Jess’s Nick who sneaks around at night and is falling in love with someone who he really shouldn’t be falling for but can’t help himself from being around.

He stops hanging out with the guys as much because it feels all sorts of gross to hit on other women and talk about them like pieces of meat, sitting around casually degrading and objectifying them, a few hours before he goes to see Jess. He can’t look in her face and talk to her while he remembers treating other people that way. He knows she would be ashamed to be with him if she ever met this other version of him and he hopes she never does. He hopes she only ever sees the version of him that he is when he is with her, the good guy who takes her into town and treats her right and keeps her safe. He hopes that if she ever learns about Douchebag Nick that she can forgive him, that she’ll know that’s not who he really is.

He still has to hang out with the guys sometimes though so they don’t get suspicious about where he’s been and what he’s been doing in all his free time. He doesn’t sleep with any other women, he hasn’t since he met Jess, but he still has to flirt with them so he can pretend to be Douchebag Nick since that's the version of who he is whenever he hangs out with the guys. He doesn’t think the guys notice that he hasn’t been taking anybody home with him anymore; they think he’s just being picky. They don’t complain since he’s been doing a pretty good job helping all of them get laid instead. He also pretends to drink so that he doesn’t show up drunk to spend time with Jess, so that he’s always lucid when he is with her. He’s an affectionate drunk and he doesn’t want to mess things up by trying to kiss her or coming on too strong with her when his inhibitions are lowered. 

If she were any other girl, he would have slept with her by now. His body definitely wants to but the real him, the guy he is in his brain and in his heart, doesn’t just want that with her. He knows if he does that to her right now, he’ll hate himself for it. He wants something with her but he isn’t exactly sure what that is yet. He’s just enjoying being with her in a way that he’s never wanted to be with anyone else. It feels significant like his life is changing when he is with her, like he is becoming the person he was always meant to be.

\---

One night they are standing beneath the oak tree outside her bedroom. It’s the end of their nightly stroll through the town; time for them to say goodnight outside her window. 

He puts out his hands to help her up the tree, but she doesn’t make a move to climb up. She just looks at him. He lowers his arms back to his sides and looks back at her. 

“Why haven’t you tried to kiss me yet, Nick?” she asks him. She looks down at her feet. “You don’t want to kiss me? You still just see me as Schmidt’s kid sister or just your ‘friend’ or some silly teenage girl?” 

The question is bold and honest in the way most people aren’t. She doesn’t play games like other girls Nick has met before, she doesn’t even know how to, and that makes him like her more. She’s braver than he ever was at her age, or even now. It’s a dangerous question though. He thinks he should lie to avoid crossing that invisible line he knows is there. He knows once he crosses that line, he can never come back from it; it’ll change his life forever. He can’t help being honest with her though because he can’t have her thinking that he doesn’t want her, not even for a second.

“I’ve wanted to kiss you since the moment I met you, Jess,” he says in a serious tone.

The emotion in his voice makes her look back up at him. “They why don’t you, Nick?”

“I like you, Jess…a lot, but Schmidt’s my best friend. I can’t go around kissing my best friend’s sister behind his back. Nothing’s happened between us yet so if he ever asks me, I won’t have to lie to him.”

“But that’s exactly it, Nick. I’m his sister and you’re his best friend…Don’t you think he would want us to be happy?” She looks directly into his eyes. “You make me happy, Nick.”

“You make me happy too, Jess…But I don’t think it’s that simple.”

He knows Schmidt wouldn’t understand. He knows this is a line he shouldn’t cross, but he can feel his resolve weakening because it’s _her_ and he knows he would do anything for her, that if she comes after him he won’t be able to say no. She can convince him of anything.

“You told me to wait for someone, make sure it’s really worth it…and I want it to be you, Nick. I want you to kiss me first. I wouldn’t regret it.” 

That takes his breath away, her trust in him, her giving that singular moment in her life to him. He doesn’t know if he deserves it; he definitely doesn’t. But if she wants to give him this opportunity to try, he’ll make sure it’s special for her. A perfect first kiss like she deserves.

“I don’t know what Schmidt told you about me, Jess, but I don’t want kissing you to be like when I kiss other girls.”

She looks down at her feet again and scuffs her toes on the grass. “You’ve kissed a lot of other girls before?” 

“I’m not such a good guy, Jess…or I wasn’t until I met you. There’ve been other girls, but I’ve never wanted to kiss any of them like I want to kiss you.”

She holds out her palm. “Well, why don’t you kiss me here and it won’t have to be like the other girls.”

He takes her palm gently in his hand. He feels nervous. He can’t remember the last time a girl made him nervous. He’s kissed a lot of girls, but this feels like a first kiss for him too because this is the first time it has ever really mattered to him.

He presses a long, slow kiss into her hand. Maybe it should feel kind of lame and goofy but he actually likes it. It feels special and different from kissing any of the other girls he has ever been with. He’s not just trying to move from base to base and feel nothing. He’s taking it slow and getting to know her, learning everything about her, earning her trust and not trying to exploit it for something he wants from her. He just wants her to like him in the purest way so he is grateful for anything she wants to give him, _a single moment in her presence, a glance in his direction, the way her eyes light up when she sees him, the small shy smile she saves just for him, the music of her laughter, every single secret she reveals to him about herself, about her life, the warmth of her skin under his hands every time they say goodnight outside her window._ Even something as small and seemingly insignificant as her allowing him to press this kiss into her hand feels monumental.

He looks back up at her and her eyes are soft with affection for him. She gently removes her hand from his grasp and runs it through his hair the way he likes. She then leans in close and presses her lips to his to kiss him for real, soft and sweet. Her mouth opens up under his to deepen the kiss. Her hands go up to stroke his arms tentatively, to stroke along his sides. He keeps his own hands in the pockets of his coat, letting her lead him, not pushing for anything more.

She pulls back from him slightly to catch her breath. They remain touching, their foreheads pressed together, and they gaze into each other’s eyes for a few intense seconds before she dives back in to kiss him again. His hands very gently go up to cup her face. When she pulls back again, it’s him that leans in this time. He mirrors her kiss, pressing his mouth to hers...nice and slow and gentle. 

When the kiss finally ends, they are still standing close together holding on to each other’s arms, clutching at the fabric of each other’s coats. He has to look away from her for a second to get control of the intensity of the feelings that are suddenly overwhelming him. She starts kissing his face, pressing gentle kisses to his jaw and along his cheeks. He presses a kiss to her forehead. He smiles when she buries her face into his neck, her arms wrapping around his back. He does the same, burying his face into her neck, hugging her to him, wrapping his arms around her back, holding her close.

\---

They stand there for what feels like an eternity, just breathing each other in, before he steps back from her.

He helps her back up the tree, across the roof, and into her bedroom window. 

When he says goodnight to her, he leans into her window and cups her face to kiss her one last time.

“Night, Jess,” he whispers to her. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He continues holding her face between his hands for a few brief seconds as he gazes deeply into her eyes. The moonlight makes her eyes shine even more intensely blue than they usually are. He can see everything he’s feeling reflected back at him through her brilliant blue eyes. His fingers stroke her cheeks once before he lets her go.

He walks back across the roof and climbs back down the tree to walk home.

Whatever else happens, he knows that he’ll always remember the feel of her lips pressing against his for the first time, the breathless sound of her gasping for air but wanting him still, the warmth of her nestled in his embrace afterwards, fitting perfectly against him like she had always belonged there. Visceral sense-memories that he will carry with him forever.


	8. Perfect Day

A few weeks later, he and Jess plan a secret getaway to the beach. He knows it’s risky but the weather has been perfect and he’s young and in love and he wants to spend time with his favorite girl out in the open during the day. He just wants one day out in the real world with her where he can hold her hand and kiss her and not have to worry about having to hide how he feels about her from other people. 

\---

He tells Schmidt and the guys that he’s driving to the next town over to visit his younger brother Jamie. Jess convinces Schmidt to let her take the bus by herself to visit her best friend Cece from boarding school. Nick waits outside the bus station hunched down in his car and watches Schmidt pull up in his truck and drop her off. He waits a few minutes to make sure Schmidt is really gone before he pulls up to the bus station to pick her up. She claps in delight when she sees him, jumping up and down in excitement. He gets out of the car to help her with her suitcase and she climbs into the passenger seat. 

When he gets back in the driver’s seat, she turns to him and says, “I can’t believe that worked, Nick,” in joyful disbelief. 

“You’re good luck, Jess. Good things just happen when you’re around.”

She grins at him. He really wants to lean over and kiss her but they’re still in the bus station and someone they know might see them, so he resists the urge. He reaches over to clasp their hands together on the center console. She squeezes his hand and he squeezes hers back. They drive off away from the bus station and on to the open road.

\---

They are driving along the highway with the windows down and the stereo turned up. Her hair is flying everywhere and she’s singing along to the radio watching the scenery fly by them. The look on her face is just one of pure unadulterated happiness. He glances over and makes sure to take a mental snapshot of this moment. When she catches him staring at her she leans over and kisses him on the cheek.

\---

When they reach the beach, she goes into the changing rooms to change into her swimsuit while he finds the perfect spot to set up their beach umbrella and beach towels on the sand. She comes out wearing a cute red polka-dot one-piece. She seems self-conscious. She has her arms crossed in front of her and her hands rub up and down her arms nervously as she looks away from him. This is the most he’s seen of her body since they’ve been together. Other girls would wear bikinis, but he likes this look on her. It’s just naturally sweet and sexy. It’s not studied at all, just honest and candid and _her_. He doesn’t think he’s ever been attracted to anyone as much as her. Not just her body, but all of her as a person. The more he gets to know her, the more attracted he is to her. He doesn’t think she knows the effect she has on him. 

He leans in close to her and whispers, “You look gorgeous, Jess. Prettiest girl on the whole beach.” She blushes at that and gives him a shy smile. He’s already wearing his swim trunks; he takes off his t-shirt. He catches her looking at him and then shyly looking away. He wishes she would keep looking at him. He likes seeing that flash of desire in her eyes, likes knowing that she wants him just as much as he wants her. He helps her put sunscreen on her back and he can’t resist kissing her shoulder when he does it. When she applies sunscreen to his back, she does the same to him and he smiles to himself at the gesture. 

When he turns back around to face her, she has a mischievous twinkle in her eye. She shouts out, “Race you!” and pushes him back. She takes off running down the beach into the ocean and he takes off running after her. He catches her in the water. His arms wrap around her waist and he spins her around while she shrieks in delight. He just hugs her to him for a few seconds before he lets her go. She turns to face him. They are both panting slightly from exertion. Joy dances in her eyes as she looks up into his face. She throws her arms around his neck and kisses him. His arms wrap around her and he kisses her back.

\---

He races her out to the sandbar. He’s a stronger swimmer than her but he slows down so she can catch up. They stand on the sandbar holding hands for several minutes, just looking out across the water toward the horizon. They are on an island by themselves surrounded by the deep blue ocean.

He lets go of her hand to dive into the ocean and swims past the sandbar and into deeper water where his feet can’t touch the ground. He looks back at her on the sandbar and she’s watching him. Her eyes are slightly anxious. He thinks she’s scared of deep water.

He swims back to her and rests his arms on the sandbar. “I’m fine, Jess. There isn’t anything to be afraid of out here,” he says to her. 

She gives him a look and starts naming things off on her fingers. “Sharks, jellyfish, riptides…”

“Alright, so there are things to be afraid of out here,” he concedes. “But that doesn’t mean you let that stop you from experiencing life. There are a lot of things that _could_ happen to you. You could get struck by lightning or get hit by a bus crossing the street or a meteor could fall on you, but that doesn’t mean you stop living. Don’t be afraid, Jess…I’ll protect you. I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

She hesitantly gets into the water next to him. She already knows how to swim so it’s mainly a mental thing; learning to use what she already knows to overcome her fear. She treads water for a bit getting used to the feeling of not having a surface for her feet to push off of beneath her. He teaches her how to relax so she can float on her back. Everyone has natural buoyancy but it’s easy to panic and tense up when you can’t see or feel the ground under you. He teaches her to trust the water, to give up the control she thinks she needs and just let herself be cradled by its cool embrace.

They float on their backs holding hands and looking at the cloudless blue sky. 

After a while, they swim back to the sand bar and then race each other back to shore. 

\---

He helps her build sandcastles. She draws a heart in the sand with her index finger absent-mindedly while she is watching him. He reaches over and writes their initials in it. She smiles at him and he kisses her.

\---

He’s holding her hand as they walk along the boardwalk among the crowds people-watching and looking into the windows of the eclectic shops. Other couples smile and nod their heads in acknowledgement of them. It feels nice to know that other people can see that they belong together.

They go under the boardwalk where it’s semi-private. The sun throws shadows between the wooden slats on to the sand; the sound of happy beachgoers is slightly muffled above them. She pulls him in and kisses him. They’ve been doing that all day. Sneak-attack kisses, learning all the different ways to kiss each other that couples learn when they’re dating. He’ll miss this once they go home, just being able to reach out and touch her whenever he wants. He wants to keep kissing her like this forever.

\---

They’re getting lunch sitting at one of the picnic tables next to each other and splitting an order of fries. He catches her watching him eating with her chin resting in her hand and an adoring look on her face. 

“What?” he asks, smiling at her. 

“You’re a cute chewer,” she says. 

“You’re so weird,” he says laughing, kissing her cheek. He leans in close to her ear to whisper, “Don’t ever change, Jess. I mean it.”

\---

He buys her a seashell bracelet from the souvenir stand. 

“You don’t have to, Nick,” she says to him. 

“I want to,” he says. He wraps the bracelet around her wrist and helps her clasp it. “Something to remember me by.” 

She shakes her head affectionately at him. “Like I could ever forget you, Nick.”

He smiles and blushes at that, looking away from her. Just the simple fact that she likes him back makes him feel shy and bashful. _‘I hope I get to keep you,’_ he thinks to himself. He presses his lips to the inside of her wrist.

\---

They’re lazing on the beach lying next to each other in the sun on their beach towels. She’s on her back and he’s on his stomach. He reaches over and strokes her arm just because he can. His hand starts at her shoulder and travels down the length of her arm to her wrist. He takes her hand in his. He thinks about just being connected to her through this singular pinpoint of touch. She smiles with her eyes closed. 

\---

He never just does this, hang out with a girl without expecting something, just innocent like this. But he likes just hanging out with her. Just being in her presence makes him feel warm and happy inside. It’s like he’s getting back all those teenage years when he was chasing girls trying to get them to sleep with him, just in it for the sex, getting a second chance to relive them the right way. This is falling in love with someone for real and he thinks he’d pick a day like this over any other day. 

\---

They go walking down the beach hand in hand away from the other beachgoers. He wants to be alone with her and he thinks she wants that too. They find a secluded alcove tucked away from the main beach, quiet and private. They are finally, truly alone together. She brought her beach towel with her, wrapped around her upper arms like a pashmina. She lays it down on the sand and sits down on it and he sits down next to her. His knees are drawn up to his chest with his arms resting on them. Her hands loop around his upper arm and she leans against his shoulder looking out across the water. He turns his head to look at her and she leans in to kiss him. One of his hands cups her face and he gently pushes her on to her back on the beach towel. He’s hovering over her, his hands pressed to the sand on either side of her head as they continue kissing and it starts to feel intense. He pulls back from her, panting. 

“We don’t have to do anything, Jess…” he says to her. He’s never said that to a girl before, but he never wants to make her feel pressured to do anything with him. He wants her to want to do those other things with him and not force her into them.

Her cheeks are flushed and her eyes are bright. Her hair is a beautiful mess of inky tangles beneath her. “I want to,” she says, biting her lip. She knows once they get home she won’t have the chance to kiss him like this, won’t get to feel him against her like this, perfect like this, so she wants to make the most of this opportunity. She pulls his head back down to kiss her.

He makes out with her surrounded by the warm sand, the sun over them, the sound of the surf crashing behind them on the beach. He’s just kissing her, not trying to push things further. He really likes kissing her. _The feel of her soft lips, her mouth fitting warm against his, the tentative way she explores his mouth with her tongue._ It surprises him that she has never been kissed before; she’s just a naturally good kisser. He selfishly hopes he’s the only guy that ever gets to do this with her; he knows that’s probably unrealistic, but at least he’ll always be her first. 

Her hands climb along the bare skin of his back. Her fingers comb through his hair delightfully grazing along his scalp. His hands tangle and untangle in her hair. They stroke along her sides memorizing the shape of her. He licks a stripe along her neck. He likes the taste of her skin salty from her sweat and the brine of the ocean. He pulls back from her to look into her face. They are both breathless, panting, gazing at each other. His hand strokes her cheek. 

“What are you thinking about?” she whispers. Her eyes are dreamy and blue, happy.

“You,” he whispers back.

They haven’t labeled anything yet; he thinks of her as his girlfriend but he can’t say that out loud yet because he hasn’t told Schmidt yet, hasn’t told anybody in his ‘real’ life about them. He has to make it real first before he can call her that, but he feels all of it. He’s glad they got this one day together.

It’s perfect. The perfect summer day to keep in his memory forever.

\---

They’re sitting on the hood of his car watching the sun go down on the horizon. Her head is leaning on his shoulder and his arm is around her holding her close to him. He wishes he could just stay here forever with her, just like this. As the light fades across the sky, he cups her face and kisses her one more time just because he can, because when he goes home he won’t be able to.

As the last of the light streaks across the water, they get back into the car and make the journey home, back to their real lives.

\---

She falls asleep on the ride home curled up on the passenger seat beside him. The radio is off and he’s just listening to the gentle sound of her breathing. He looks out at the open road and the constellations in the night sky guiding them home.

\---

When he pulls into the bus station, he just spends a few minutes looking at her curled up on the passenger seat beside him fast asleep. He wishes he could bring her home with him, just tuck her into bed next to him, and then wake up with her in the morning.

He knows this is crazy. This will only end badly, because of Schmidt, because she’s too young for him and too good for him, but he can’t help it. He can’t stop seeing her. He no longer knows who he is without her there. 

He knows he’s in trouble. It’s a really good thing and a really bad thing all at the same time because she makes him happy, happier than he’s been in a long time, maybe ever in his entire life, but she’s still Schmidt’s sister and Nick’s still Schmidt’s best friend and best friends don’t date their friend's sisters. They don’t mess with their families.

But…he loves her. He can’t help it. He hopes Schmidt sees that he’s for real this time and this isn’t about sex or girls or getting another notch on his bedpost. This is real. He knows it’ll be hard but he hopes Schmidt can eventually accept this because they’re pretty much brothers. They’re family too, even if they aren’t related. 

He pulls himself out of his head and shakes her gently to wake her up. “Jess, we’re here,” he whispers to her.

She stretches and rubs sleep from her eyes. She looks over at him with a sleepy smile. “That was the best day ever, Nick. Thanks for taking me.”

He smiles back at her. “Anytime.” He looks around them and it’s dark outside so he sneaks one more quick kiss from her.

He gets out of the car and brings her suitcase out of the trunk. Schmidt will be here soon to pick her up. He parks his car close by the bus station entrance outside and makes sure she gets safely in the truck with Schmidt before driving himself home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beach makeout scene is a reference to the famous beach scene in the film _From Here to Eternity (1953)_


	9. Bonfire

Every year, Schmidt’s friends always hold a big bonfire in the woods to celebrate the halfway point of summer. It’s been a tradition since their first year of high school, something to break up the monotony of the long, lazy days of summer in their small town. All the young people from town show up and it’s one big outdoor party. It’s always a lot of fun; they have a campfire cookout, everyone gets comfortably shitfaced, and they all hang out late into the night.

\---

Jess begs him to let her go with him.

“Please, Schmidt? I just want to see what it’s like. I haven’t done anything all summer and you make it sound so much fun every year when you go. I promise that I won’t even drink.”

“You’re too young, Jess. Maybe next year. _Maybe._ ”

“You started going when you were 14,” she pouts. “I’m going to waste my whole summer before college being stuck in my room.”

Their mom sticks her head into the kitchen where they are sitting at the kitchen table eating lunch. “Let her go with you, Schmidt. Socialization is important for a young girl.”

Schmidt gets up and pulls his mom into the living room.

“Mom, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he whispers insistently so Jess won’t overhear them. “There’s going to be drinking. And boys. You know my friends can get a little…wild.”

“Just watch out for her, Schmidt.” She looks at Schmidt’s anxious face and pats his cheek. “We can’t protect her forever, dear. She’ll be away at college soon and have to make her own choices. Just let her experiment a little while you’re still around so she can make good ones.” 

Schmidt sighs and goes back into the kitchen. Jess is pretending that she hadn’t been eavesdropping at the kitchen door.

“Okay,” he relents. 

She gets up and throws her arms around him hugging him tightly. “You’re the best, Schmidt!”

He pulls back from her and puts up an admonishing index finger. “But no drinking,” he says sternly. “And no sneaking off to make out with any boys.”

She pulls a face at him. “What kind of girl do you think I am, Schmidt?” she teases. She looks at his worried face. “I promise. No drinking, no boys.”

\---

The day before the bonfire, Schmidt calls Elizabeth, his on-again/off-again girlfriend. 

_Schmidt and Elizabeth were weirdly close friends, although none of the other guys knew about it. They would sleep together whenever either one of them was bored or they couldn’t find anybody better at the local bar. She wasn’t like the other girls he slept with. She always called him on all his shit, all his douchebag tendencies, never let him get away with anything, but he actually liked that about her._

_The first time they had slept together and he was putting his clothes back on to go home from her place, he automatically said, “I’ll call you,” to her and she had responded with, “You don’t have to lie to me, Schmidt. This was just sex. I know all about you and your douchebag friends.” That had caught him off guard. He hadn’t been expecting that level of honesty; the girls he slept with usually wanted him to lie to them, tell them nice but false things about what they were doing together. He looked back at her sitting in bed with the sheet pulled up around her chest, her arms crossed in front of her smoking a cigarette. She was completely comfortable in her own skin. He looked into her face and she met his eyes unselfconsciously. “I’m just not a relationship guy, Liz,” he told her. She had laughed at that. “I don’t want a relationship with you, Schmidt. You’re a douchebag who hangs out with other douchebags. I just wanted some fun; something casual. Just don’t lie to me, Schmidt.”_

_She was straightforward and honest in a way most people weren’t; he never had to pretend to be something he wasn’t with her. She knew he was a douchebag and she didn’t want a relationship with him, but they worked really well as friends with benefits. The thrill of the chase and sleeping with someone new can be really exciting, but sometimes it’s nice just to spend time with someone you know who knows you. They both know what each other likes in bed so the sex is always fun and it’s always pleasantly familiar and comfortable just being with her._

_Sometimes when Schmidt can’t sleep because he’s thinking about the fact that he’s 24 and a college dropout and still living at home, he walks across town to Elizabeth’s house and taps on her bedroom window. She lets him in and they won’t have sex, but he’ll curl up next to her in bed. Her presence next to him always calms his overactive mind and lulls him to sleep. He’ll leave in the morning and they’ll never have to talk about it; they just understand each other. He’s never had this sort of connection with anyone else. He thinks he might be in love with her, but he doesn’t want to screw up what they have together so he’d never tell her about his feelings. He’s pretty happy just being friends with benefits with her even though he calls her his ‘girlfriend’ in his head and thinks about her all the time. Next to Nick, she is probably his best friend, but he would never tell anybody that. He doesn’t think anybody in his ‘real’ life would get the ‘not-relationship’ relationship he has with her; the guys would probably all make fun of him for being ‘whipped.’ Schmidt thinks maybe the guys have it wrong; if being ‘whipped’ means hanging out with a cool girl who is always up for sex whenever and makes you feel all warm and happy inside when you’re with her, then it really isn’t such a bad place to be._

“Hey, Liz,” Schmidt greets her.

“What do you want, Schmidt?” Elizabeth asks him bluntly.

“What? I can’t just call you up to say hello?”

“I know you, Schmidt,” she says with a smile in her voice. “You never call me on a Friday unless you want something.”

“Fair enough. Are you going to the bonfire tomorrow night?”

“I have nothing better to do. Why?”

“I’m bringing my little sister and I was just wondering if you could look out for her.”

“Well, well, well…you’re finally going to introduce her to the guys?”

“No,” Schmidt says firmly. “That’s why I need you…Can you just hang out with her? Help me keep her out of trouble? You know how crazy this thing usually gets.”

“Look at you being the protective older brother,” she teases. “Don’t worry, Schmidt; it’s girl code. Girls don’t let other girls lose their virginities to douchebags.”

Schmidt breathes out a sigh of relief. “You’re the best, Liz. I owe you one.” He pauses. “You want to do something later?”

“Is this the setup to a lame sex joke?” He can hear her wrinkle her nose through the phone.

He snickers. “Unintentional. We can hang out at your place. I’ll cook you dinner, we’ll open up a bottle of wine, watch a movie…”

“And then we can do fun, adult things to each other?”

He smiles to himself and thinks about all the reasons he loves her. “Sounds like a good plan to me.”

“Sure; see you later, babe.”

“See you, babe.”

\---

Schmidt drives with Jess to the bonfire in his truck. He can feel the nervous anticipation radiating off of her. She’s practically bouncing in her seat with excitement.

When he parks the truck and she turns to open the passenger side door, he touches her arm and she turns back to look at him. “Remember the rules, Jess.” 

She rolls her eyes at him. “I know…no drinking, no boys.” 

“Damn straight,” he says firmly. 

\---

When she exits the truck, she looks about her excitedly, taking it all in. She sees all these cooler, older, more sophisticated people around her drinking and laughing and having a great time. She was always the nerd, meek and bookish, even at boarding school. These are all the popular people she never got the chance to be around, who never let her into their secret circles, and now she gets to be one of them. 

She approaches the large bonfire in the middle of the clearing. She sees Nick standing nearby with his arms crossed in front of him holding a can of beer in one hand and staring into the flames. He catches her eye and smiles at her. They share a look before glancing away from each other, keeping their secret hidden. She wishes that she could go over there and kiss him, hold his hand in front of everybody like they are real boyfriend and girlfriend, show everyone they belong to each other. She turns her head and sees a group of guys hanging out near the picnic benches checking her out. They grin and nudge each other as they leer at her. She looks back towards Nick and he is looking at them too, frowning. He subtly moves to place himself in between her and the group of guys. Three of them start to walk over to her but Nick intercepts them and says something to them, redirecting their attention to a group of girls standing in a tight circle drinking wine coolers at the other side of the bonfire. The three guys walk over to flirt with the other girls instead. Nick returns to his place standing a short distance away from her near the bonfire. He catches her eye again and gives her a tight smile. _He doesn’t want other guys hitting on her,_ Jess realizes. It feels electric knowing she belongs to him; she shivers at the thrill of it traveling just under her skin, making her heart beat faster and goosebumps break out all over her body.

Some people are toasting marshmallows and Jess tries to join in. She’s never done it before so she keeps burning hers. She sees Nick trying not to laugh at her, his eyes crinkled with amusement. She smiles sheepishly. He walks over to her and shows her the right way to toast her marshmallow so it gets evenly golden-brown on all sides without burning. He is standing close to her and his hand is warm on hers; she still gets butterflies in her stomach whenever he touches her. She looks up into his face and his eyes are warm with affection for her. She turns her head and Schmidt is staring hard at them, his mouth set in a stern line of disapproval. Nick stops touching her and backs off, putting space in between them, his face carefully neutral. Schmidt comes over and says, “Come walk with me, Jess,” in his firm, big brother voice so she has to do what he says. 

\---

They are walking on the wooded path away from the bonfire. The sounds of the partygoers fade out becoming muffled and distant as they continue down the path. There is a full moon out tonight illuminating the woods around them and the sky is a blanket of stars. It makes Jess think of all the nights she has spent wandering the town with Nick beside her, all her favorite memories of them alone together since the start of the summer. She and Schmidt walk along in silence for several minutes. She feels tension in the air between them like Schmidt wants to say something to her but isn’t sure how to start, so she breaks the ice.

“Nick was just showing me how to toast marshmallows, Schmidt, not trying to get me pregnant,” she says jokingly.

“That’s how it starts, Jess,” Schmidt says seriously. “Just little excuses to touch you, getting you to let your guard down. Then you think, ‘Hey, this guy isn’t such a bad guy,’ but you really don’t have any idea about the kind of person they are. You don’t want to get involved with any of the guys from this town, Jess. Not even Nick.”

She looks at him in surprise. “You don’t think Nick is a good guy? He’s your best friend.”

“Exactly. He’s my best friend. That’s how I know. I love Nick, but I also know his track record with women. He might be the best guy out of our group of friends, but even the best guy out of a group of douchebags is still a douchebag.” 

“Why are you even friends with any of them if they’re all so horrible?”

“It’s just something you fall into growing up around here. Your friends are just the people you grew up with; you get used to having them around. It’s hard to let go of them even if you know they’re bad people. Then you become a bad person being around them; it’s hard not to be.”

“You’re just trying to scare me, Schmidt,” she said in annoyance. “You just want me to stay a little kid forever. You don’t want me to have any friends that are boys, let alone a boyfriend.”

“You’re my sister, Jess, and I want what’s best for you. I want you to get out of this town and go to college and find a really good guy. Somebody who’ll treat you right and is actually going places. Not somebody from here.”

He can see the skepticism on her face. “I know you don’t believe me, but you can talk to some of the girls here about guys in this town. They’ll tell you all about ‘nice guys’ like Nick and how they really are. Come on, I’ll even introduce you.”

\----

They walk back towards the bonfire and Schmidt leads her towards a group of girls sitting at the picnic tables chatting and drinking beers. They look up as she and Schmidt approach them.

“Ladies,” Schmidt nods at them and they nod back in acknowledgement. “This is my little sister, Jess.” He introduces her with a wave of his hand. The girls look her up and down appraisingly. Jess shrinks back into herself, feeling uncomfortably like she is getting measured up by the ‘cool girls’ in high school. They give her welcoming smiles though and she relaxes.

“Come sit next to me, Jess,” one of the girls says patting the bench seat beside her. “I’ll tell you all the juicy gossip in this town.” 

Jess sits down gingerly next to the girl. She sees Schmidt and the girl exchange a look. “Take care of her, Liz,” Schmidt says before walking away from them and back towards the bonfire.

“I’m Elizabeth,” the girl says. 

“Julia,” says one of the girls sitting across from them.

“Angie,” says the third girl, raising her beer bottle at Jess.

“Nice to meet you,” Jess says. She narrows her eyes at them suspiciously. “Did Schmidt tell you to try and scare me into staying away from boys?” She sighs in exasperation. “I think he doesn’t want anyone to even kiss me until I’m 50.” 

Elizabeth is amused. Jess’s snarkiness reminds her of Schmidt; they are definitely related.

“You think Schmidt’s being overprotective, but he’s right about them you know. Every guy in this town is a scumbag. A pretty young thing like you? They would eat you up.” 

“Any of them try and get you to sleep with them yet, Jess?” Elizabeth asks bluntly. 

Jess shakes her head. “Schmidt does a pretty good job of keeping me in the house. Can’t have the rest of the world soiling his perfect little sister,” she says dryly. 

“Schmidt goes a little overboard, but I think he just regrets a lot of things that he’s done in his life. Most people do. He just doesn’t want you to have to go through the same things he did, have the same regrets.”

Jess blinks at her. “What kind of regrets?”

“Regrets about sex, love, first times, first kisses, bad relationships, all of it. You think you want to experience all of it, until you actually do. Some of it’s good; most of it's bad, especially living in this town. And all those bad experiences, you can never take them back again, can never relive them again once you’ve lived them.”

Elizabeth looks over at the rowdy group of guys at the other side of the clearing. “You don’t want to get involved with any of the guys in this town, Jess. They don’t see girls or women as people. They see us as a nice distraction. Something to chase, just to prove they can. Something to use and then throw away. Racking up notches on their bedposts to prove they’re _‘men,’_ like a million of the other stupid contests they have with each other. They don’t want love, someone they would actually have to care about; they just want sex. They’ll all say the right things to get you into bed, but then they’ll break your heart.”

“The worst are the charmers, guys who pretend to be nice guys and fool you into thinking they’re ‘boyfriend material,’ right up until they’re walking out the door and leaving you. Take Nick, for example.” She turns to look Jess directly in the eyes. “You like him, right? There’s something going on between you two?” 

Jess is caught off guard by the question. “We haven’t… We aren’t…” she stammers.

The girls all share a knowing look between themselves. “Don’t lie to the sisterhood, Jess,” Elizabeth says. “The guys might be oblivious, but we girls know. We’ve seen how you two look at each other. You really don’t want to get involved with a guy like that though, Jess…He seems like a nice guy but he’ll say anything, lie to your face to get you into bed just like the rest of them. Julia can tell you.” 

“It’s true,” Julia chimes in. “He was my first, way back in high school. He was older and paid attention to me and I ate it up. He told me he loved me so I said yes to him and he took my virginity in the back of some party. Then he never spoke to me again. Didn’t even call me the next day; pretended not to know me when we passed each other in the hallway or on the street.”

Jess hears Nick’s voice in her head telling her he hadn’t been a nice guy before he met her, but it’s still tough to hear in person from someone else. She is trying to rationalize all the bad things these girls are telling her about him with all the good memories she has of Nick, _of him being nice to her, of him telling her she was special, of him looking at her with his soulful eyes filled with affection for her._ “That was high school though,” Jess protests. “We’ve all made mistakes in high school. Don’t you think people change?” 

“People don’t change, Jess,” Angie says firmly. “Trust me; I know too. Nick’s a magnetic kind of guy, the type of guy it’s not easy for a girl to say no to when he’s focusing all his attention on you. He’s a great kisser, great in bed, whispers all the right things to you that he knows you want to hear, but he’ll drop you faster than you can say ‘ex-virgin’ afterwards once he’s bored of you.” 

“He’s been with you too?” Jess asks faintly in dismay. 

Angie nods. “Everything Elizabeth said is true; it’s not just rumors. None of the guys care about who they’ve slept with at all. I think Nick has slept with most of the girls in this damn town. They all have, or they've all tried to at least.”

Jess feels anger rise within her, wanting to defend Nick from the accusations of these girls. “So what if he’s been with other girls before?” Jess says challengingly. “Nick and I are together now. We’re in a real relationship.” 

“Think about this, Jess…Has he even called you his girlfriend yet?” Elizabeth asks.

Jess looks down at the table. “That’s because he hasn’t told Schmidt yet. He’s waiting for the right time,” she says quietly. 

The three girls exchange another look. “Or he has some side piece in town,” Angie says bluntly. “They’re only serious when it’s convenient for them.” She sees Jess’s distraught face. “We’re not trying to be mean to you, Jess,” she says gently. “We’re just trying to give you the advice that we all wish we had when we first started seeing boys.” 

Jess feels the burn of tears behind her eyes. She digs her nails into her palms to will herself not to cry. The other girls pat her reassuringly to comfort her. 

_‘It’s in the past,’_ Jess tries to convince herself. _‘They don’t know him like I do. He’s mine. My Nick. We belong together. He wouldn’t do any of those things to me.’_

But as she looked out across the clearing at Nick standing among the other guys, flirting with the other girls, tendrils of doubt start to make their way into her head. 


	10. Sunrise

Schmidt is working the graveyard shift and their mom Joan is an extraordinarily deep sleeper so Nick and Jess can stay out as late as they want without the fear of getting caught. 

He takes her hiking up in the mountains behind the park so they can see the sunrise together. It’s something that he’s always wanted to do but never got around to and he wants to share it with her. Another thing to check off her bucket list of life experiences. He lets himself dream about a future when their relationship will finally be real, something they can tell people about without having to hide it and they won't have to sneak around with each other like it’s something shameful. He thinks about them having their own bucket list together, a whole life of shared hopes and dreams that they get to experience together. He wants to share everything with her.

Jess has been a bit distant since the bonfire. He keeps glancing over at her while they are hiking, trying to read her, but she isn’t meeting his eyes. She’s just focusing straight ahead on the path in front of them. He can feel the thrum of tension underneath their usual comfortable silence. At the bonfire, he saw her sitting with Elizabeth and Julia and Angie, some of the girls he’s been with in the past, and he wonders what they told her about him. He’s too afraid to ask her about it though. He hopes it wasn’t a really bad truth, but his mind runs through all the versions of him that he’s been, how he has lived his life, all the stuff he’s done and he knows it couldn’t have been anything good. 

She hasn’t asked him about anything yet. He’s still trying to piece together an explanation for her when she does ask him, telling his past history in a way that is honest without hurting her too much. He isn’t quite ready to tell her everything yet if she doesn’t ask him first. He’s still trying to hang on to the way they are now a bit longer before he has to tell her everything and ruin it.

He hopes she can hold on to the memory of what it feels like when they are together, that she can learn all those bad things about him and still see that the version of him when he is with her is his true self. Who he is when he is with her is who he wants to be in his real life, the person he was never brave enough to be before he met her. She makes him brave. She makes him want to be better. She makes him hope for things, a good life with her in it. He can become someone he can be proud of when he is with her, the person he was always meant to be.

\---

They reach the summit of the mountain a few minutes before sunrise. They take off their backpacks and snuggle up together under a throw to watch the horizon. He reaches for her, entwining their hands together under the throw, and she looks up and smiles at him. He can see her eyes and they are no longer distant, but calm and happy, filled with that special light she saves just for him. It’s nice with just the two of them up here and he wishes it was always this way. 

When they are alone together, everything just seems so simple. He wishes it could always be this simple…him and her without everyone else in the way. He feels that familiar impulse in him to compartmentalize all the different parts of his life. It’s the same impulse that made him run away from law school and the world Out There to come back to this town. Life doesn’t work that way though; it’s messy and you can’t just put everything you don’t want to deal with in nice little boxes so you don’t have to deal with them. It isn’t living; it’s avoiding life. He can say he’s a good guy, but he isn’t really if he’s only a good guy when he’s here alone with her and not when he’s around everyone else in his real life. Your actions are what make you who you are. He wants to make this real with her so he has to man up and be brave enough to tell everyone about them someday soon. He needs to be brave enough to own his life and his decisions and not just wander through life passively, paralyzed by fear, falling back into old patterns because it’s easier than fighting for a life he really wants. But right now he can just enjoy this…something that is just this simple, just him and her, and he can allow himself to imagine how it would be if they spent the rest of their lives together. 

He can see how easily this could just be a summer fling, how they could be facing down an expiration date once summer is over and she goes off to college. He wants this to be more, but he doesn’t know what she wants yet. He thinks she might change her mind about him, about them, once she goes off to college and meets other people. She’ll meet all these great guys with bright futures, guys that are much better than him, that deserve her more. He’ll just fade away in her memory and become just some small town guy she used to know. 

But he hopes for her anyway, a life with her in it. Hopes that he can make her see that he loves her as much as it is possible for one person to love another person, so someday she can love him back, so she’ll want to hang on to him even when she doesn’t see him every day to remind her of it. And even if she doesn’t, he’ll be happy that he got to love her once, got to be that good guy he is when he is with her before he has to let her go. Just because something ends, doesn’t mean you regret it, and he would never regret any of the time he has spent with her. Most people spend their entire lives looking for love and never find it; he found it and now he just has to figure out a way to hold on to it.

\---

The sun is just beginning to rise over the horizon and the rays of light slowly start to illuminate the valley below them, flooding everything with color and bringing the world into existence. She’s watching the sunrise but he’s watching her. The early morning light makes her glow like a luminous earthbound angel and it makes him think about all the different images of her he has in her head and how she’s gorgeous in every one of them. It catches him off guard sometimes; he’ll turn his head to look at her and he’ll see her in a way he’s never seen her before and it will take his breath away every time. 

He’s been wanting to tell her how he feels for a while but it’s never felt quite right. But she’s here with him now and they’re watching the sunrise and it feels like they are the only two people on Earth, one of those rare perfect moments, and he knows it isn’t real yet because he hasn’t told anybody about them, hasn’t even called her his girlfriend yet, but it feels right to say it so he does. He turns her face with his hand so that she’s looking directly into his eyes and he says, “I love you, Jess. I’m sorry I haven’t asked you to be my girlfriend yet and I want you to know it’s not because I don’t feel it or I’m ashamed and trying to hide you from everyone else. It’s because I haven’t earned the right to call you that yet because I’m the one that’s been too afraid to tell people about us. I’m afraid about what they’ll say when they see you with a guy like me. But I don’t want our relationship to be about what other people think. I know we haven’t told anyone about us yet but I want you to know I’m serious about you, about us, and I want to call you my girlfriend anyway. And before the summer is over, I want to tell Schmidt about us; I want to tell everybody and make this real.” And he knows it’s not enough to keep her, but at least she got to hear him say it, at least she’ll know, even if she never says it back to him. 

It makes her so radiantly, transparently happy that no matter what happens to them in the future, he’ll never regret saying it to her as long as he lives. In that brief, shining moment, she really is his. She kisses him deeply and everything feels right again. The world is perfect in that moment.

When they pull back from each other, he says breathlessly, “You don’t have to say it back to me, Jess; I just wanted you to know. Say it back to me when you really feel it.”

She squeezes his hand so he knows she understands. Nick thinks people use the phrase ‘I love you’ too liberally. He wants it to mean something every time they say it to each other and not just be an automatic response, something thoughtless you say because the words sound nice. He hopes one day she’ll say it back to him, but he would never expect her to say the words just because he says it to her. These words that are the most special, precious things you can say to another person should never have strings attached to them.

“You’re my boyfriend, Nick,” she says with shy happiness, trying out the words.

“I was always yours, Jess,” he replies before leaning back in to kiss her again.

He’s happy that he can finally call her his girlfriend. At this point the word ‘girlfriend’ doesn’t seem like enough to describe what she is to him though. She’s _Jess_ and that word means more to him than anything. 


	11. Girl Talk

Cece has come down to visit Jess for the weekend. They are having a sleepover slumber party dressed down in their pajamas eating junk food and watching all the 90s movies they grew up with and know all the words to by heart.

They are sitting on the floor surrounded by the debris of arts and crafts projects and spa beauty materials, detritus from earlier activities in the slumber party. Cece is painting Jess’s toenails a pretty pastel pink while she tells Jess all about her glamorous summer getting discovered and becoming a model. Jess absentmindedly plays with the bracelet on her wrist as she listens to Cece. 

“Cute,” Cece says, reaching over to examine the bracelet more closely. “I thought I knew all your jewelry. New?”

Jess has been dying to tell Cece all about her relationship, but hasn’t been sure how to bring it up. Cece is usually the one that has secrets about boys, sneaking out from their boarding school dorm room to meet them in secret places before returning and crawling in bed next to Jess to tell her all about the dates they took her out on, about kissing and making out and all the things girls and boys do together when no one is looking. Cece has always been the more worldly and experienced one. Jess was always the shy one, following all the rules, both terrified and intrigued by the world Cece ventured out into so fearlessly. Now Jess gets to have those experiences too; she gets to have interesting stories to share that are uniquely hers, that no one else has experienced before but her. Jess sees the perfect opening now to tell her best friend all about the exciting summer she has been having too.

“Can you keep a secret?” Jess whispers. 

Cece lights up and nods vigorously in delight. Jess never has secrets so it must be something good. They make a pinky promise and Cece crosses her heart for good measure. Jess gets up and opens her bedroom door to look down the hallway to make sure Schmidt isn’t eavesdropping. She then closes and locks her bedroom door before resuming her position sitting on the floor and leaning against the side of her bed. Cece sits next to her and they lean their heads together conspiratorially.

“Nick got it for me. Remember how I told you to lie for me that one time this summer so I could go to the beach? I went with Nick.”

“Who’s Nick?” Cece asks. 

“He’s my boyfriend.” Jess can’t help the smile that spreads across her face at being able to say those words out loud to someone else.

“Jess…you have a boyfriend?” Cece says in surprise. “I didn’t even know you had your first kiss yet.”

She nods and her hands go up to cover her cheeks, bright with joy. “He was my first kiss.”

“It was perfect, Cece. A perfect fairytale kiss,” Jess says dreamily.

Cece smiles at her. “Aww...I’m so happy for you, babe.”

Cece flashes back to when they were kids at boarding school and would whisper about their ‘perfect guys’ under the covers late at night after lights-out. She wonders what kind of guy has swept Jess off her feet. “Where did you meet him?” she asks curiously.

“He’s Schmidt’s best friend.”

“I thought your brother was 24. His best friend is someone our age?” Cece asks in confusion.

Jess looks away from Cece. “He’s 24 too,” she mumbles. 

“24, Jess?” Cece says, less thrilled. “That’s old.”

“That’s not that old!” Jess protests.

“For you, it’s old,” Cece says wisely. “How long have you known him?” 

“I met him this summer…about 3 months ago.”

“3 months, Jess? That’s fast.”

“But we've spent almost every day together this summer. He’s so nice to me, Cece…”

“They all are…” Cece says sadly.

“He already told me he loves me.” Jess turns her head to look directly into Cece’s eyes. “He loves me, Cece,” she repeats, her voice filling with emotion. “I want him to be my first everything.” 

Cece has her unimpressed face on. Her eyes are stony and her mouth is set in a straight line. It’s the face she always has whenever she wants to tell Jess something brutally honest.

Jess blinks at her. “Have you ever been in love, Cece?” Jess whispers.

“Once,” Cece said. “I thought it was love, but it wasn’t. He cheated on me because I wouldn’t sleep with him after a month. All guys are the same; you have to do things to keep them.” 

“Nick would never do that,” Jess protests. “He’s always asking me if it’s okay for him to do all that stuff…He doesn’t push me.”

“Maybe he likes the game…He likes knowing you’re a virgin. But once he takes what he wants, he’ll get bored of you and drop you.” 

Jess’s face is heartbroken. “I know that’s not what you want to hear, babe, but I know more about this stuff than you do…I know all about boys like him, men like him… All guys are like that, especially older guys. You think he hasn’t told other girls he’s loved them before? It’s just something guys say because they think you want to hear it. None of them really mean it.” 

_It feels true when they’re alone. But then she thinks about that night at the bonfire, him flirting with those other girls, touching those other girls. Maybe it’s just easy for him to lie._

“He probably has other girls; they all do. They'll act all sweet and lovey-dovey to you in person, but then they all flirt and sleep around behind your back…it’s all just a game to them. They like knowing they have you wrapped around their finger waiting up for them at home while they go out and sleep with anything that moves. You’re so young and innocent, Jess. Don’t tie yourself down to the first guy that kisses you. How do you know it’s love if you haven’t been with anyone else? It’s not your fault; you just don’t have anything to compare it to. You think it’s love when it’s not.”

_It feels pretty real to her. But she’s never even kissed anyone before him, so maybe she doesn’t know. Maybe she's just caught up in hormones and all her girlish ideas of love and she doesn't really see who he is at all. Maybe she would have fallen in love with any guy who had sat down next to her in that closet at that party, eager to get to all those grown-up milestones all her friends had already gotten to. Maybe it’s better with other people and she’s in over her head like Cece says._

“You’re going to college soon, Jess. Be young and have fun. Everyone else does. You’re only 18; you have so much time to find the guy you’re supposed to end up with. It’s not like the movies; there is no perfect guy, even if you think this guy is it. Protect your heart and don’t give it away just because some guy tells you he loves you. Think hard about what you really want, if this guy is really worth it.” 

“He is, Cece,” Jess says. “He’s really worth it.” But inside she can feel uncertainty swirling in her gut.

Cece hugs her tightly. “I’m happy for you, Jess…I’m just telling you to be careful. You’re my best friend and one of the best people I know; I want you to meet an amazing guy who really deserves you.” 

Cece doesn’t want to hurt Jess, but they are always honest with each other so Cece has to speak her mind. But once she has said her piece, she backs off and lets Jess have her moment. “Tell me everything,” she says brightly.

Jess smiles warmly at her best friend. They talk and giggle late into the night with their heads bent together as Jess tells Cece what it’s like to be in love for the first time.


	12. Loyalties

Nick is walking in the park with Winston helping him look for his cat Furguson. 

Winston isn’t doing a very good job because he keeps glancing over at Nick instead of looking around them at the surrounding park. Winston’s scrutiny is starting to put Nick on edge. Winston seems kind of pissed off at him for some reason but Nick isn’t sure what he did. He and Winston never fight. It’s pretty much impossible to make Winston mad about anything; he’s the definition of mellow. He doesn’t hold grudges and he’s a straight shooter that will tell you exactly what he means. There is no confusing subtext to anything he says or does; he’s a total open book and wears his heart on his sleeve. 

Winston is usually such a straightforward and easygoing dude so Nick isn’t sure what is up with him today. Winston keeps looking at Nick like he is expecting him to tell him something and is frustrated that Nick isn’t getting it. Maybe he unintentionally insulted Furguson or made fun of Winston’s bird shirts or his love for fruity drinks and Winston wants him to apologize for that. There is always some friendly teasing or ball-busting between them but he’s sure even Winston has his limits. But if it was just that, Nick thinks Winston would just come out and tell him. It must be something bigger than that. Nick hopes that Winston is just having a bad day.

“Where did you say you last saw him?” Nick asks to break the awkward silence between them. He squints into the trees. 

Winston doesn’t respond to that. Instead, he stops in the middle of the path and says, “I saw you, Nick. I saw you and her together.” 

Nick feels a stab of panic. He freezes and turns around to face Winston. He tries to play dumb. “Saw me with who?” 

Winston gives him a look. “You know who I mean.” Nick gives him a blank stare in return. “You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you? Schmidt’s sister. I saw you with Jess.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Winston.” Nick turns away from him and continues walking briskly along the path. Winston jogs to catch up to him. “Why would I be hanging out with her?”

“You tell me, man,” Winston says giving him a hard look.

Nick lets out a large sigh. “Where did you see us?”

“Walking at night near the textile mill. I was just doing my patrol, driving by, and I saw you there with her. What are you thinking, man?” 

“We weren’t doing anything, Winston…We were just walking. Schmidt keeps her at home too much. I was just taking her out to see the town.”

“In the middle of the night, Nick? You and I both know that’s straight up bullshit. You’re trying to sleep with her, aren’t you?” Winston said accusingly. “How are you going to do Schmidt like that? Just go behind his back like that and sneak around with his sister. He’s your best friend.” He scowls at Nick, angry on Schmidt’s behalf. 

“It’s not like that, Winston. We haven’t slept together.”

“ _Yet,_ ” Winston says, giving him major side-eye. “How long has this been going on?”

“Couple of months…since the start of the summer.”

“Couple of _months_ …?” Winston says taken aback. His surprise quickly turns to disapproval.

“It’s not like that,” Nick repeats. “I’m not just trying to sleep with her; we’re in a relationship together. I’m trying to do things right this time, taking it slow and getting to know her. I think I’m in love with her.” He corrects himself. “I know I am. I can see myself spending the rest of my life with her. She’s it for me.”

Winston stops in the middle of the path and looks at Nick stunned and slightly open-mouthed. “I’ve never heard you say that about a girl before, Nick, not even Caroline…”

Nick stops and looks back at Winston. “I love her,” he says with simple conviction. He can’t help the smile that spreads across his face at being able to tell someone what he has been thinking every single day since he has met Jess. He likes the way the words fit his mouth.

Winston can’t help smiling back at him. He is secretly a hopeless romantic, a big softie at heart, and he likes seeing his best friend in love. But then his smile fades and he frowns. “I want you to be happy, Nick, I really do, but this is a terrible idea…You have to break it off. You could have picked literally any other girl, but you picked her, your best friend’s sister. And you weren’t even honest about it; you’ve been sneaking around with her behind his back for months.” 

“She’s not just any other girl, Winston. I didn’t plan this; it just happened. If I could make her not Schmidt’s sister or if I could go fall in love with someone else, I would, but it’s _her_. It is what it is. I know how this looks; I should have told Schmidt sooner, but I didn’t want to tell him until I was sure.”

“You can’t do this to him, Nick. You’re messing with his family. You think he’s going to be able to forgive you for this? Just accept this and tell you it’s alright? That he’s happy for you? _Go ahead and date my sister. I’ve seen what you’ve done to all the other girls in town, but it’s still okay?_ This is going to end badly. You and I both know that; that’s why you haven’t told Schmidt yet. Break it off, Nick. Schmidt doesn’t know yet so you can still end things with her before anybody gets hurt.”

“It’s not about him, Winston…it’s about me and her and the fact that we’re together now. I’ll tell Schmidt, I will, but I can’t end things with her.” 

Nick looks down at his feet. “You’re not going to rat me out are you, Winston?” 

“Nah, man, we’re best friends too. Just be careful, okay? We’ve all been friends forever and I still want us all to be best friends after this summer is over.” 

Nick looks up at Winston and gives him a sympathetic smile. “I know Winston, me too…” 

They continue walking along the path in tense silence. 

“Furguson was never missing, was he?” 

“Nah, man. If Furguson was really missing, I would be bawling like a damn baby. I just didn’t know how to get you alone to ask you about Jess.”

“S’alright, Winston. Want to go get a drink? I’m buying.”

“Sounds good, man.” 

Winston knows this is Nick’s way of apologizing to him. Whoever is wrong always buys the drinks after the rare times they fight. Winston might think this is the stupidest of the stupid choices but he’s told Nick what he thinks and he’s going to back off and let Nick make his own decisions. The tension is gone between them and they walk back along the park path and into the town with Winston chatting animatedly next to him about the insane-slash-amazing outdoor cat habitat he is building for Furguson in his backyard.

\---

Winston is a good guy, a good friend that Nick doesn’t really deserve. Nick hates having to put Winston in this position, trying to be loyal to both him and Schmidt. He knows Winston is right and this could all blow up really easily. If it does, everyone in the town will side with Schmidt because Nick is clearly in the wrong here by going after Schmidt’s sister, even though the other people in the town won’t know the half of it, won’t know the full story. He can take it if Jess is there next to him though. People will say what they’re going to say, but if he still has her at the end of all of this, he doesn’t care.

He has to tell Schmidt soon, but he’s still trying to figure out how to do it in the right way. There really isn’t a _good_ way to tell him; it’s going to be ugly no matter what. Schmidt will definitely be angry, but Nick thinks they have been friends for over 20 years so that has to count for something. He thinks the best way is just to go over to Schmidt’s house, sit him down, and tell it to him straight like they tell each other everything else. He knows he’s putting his friendship with Schmidt on the line, but he knows Jess is worth it. He loves Schmidt and he wouldn’t go against him if he didn’t believe it was worth it. 

He hopes Schmidt will give him his blessing. They have been right there next to each other through everything as far back as Nick can remember and he really wants to keep Schmidt in his life. After Nick tells him, maybe he won’t see Schmidt for a while, maybe for years, but he hopes in the distant future that Schmidt will be there standing next to him as his best man at their wedding when Jess walks down the aisle and this will just be another one in the long line of stories binding them together as brothers, as family.


	13. We Used To Be Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in posting chapters, dear readers! The narrative was tough to break here so I had a lot of different drafts for this one. This chapter was originally something crazy like 3000+ words so I decided it was better to break it up and make it two chapters since it was feeling overloaded. Still working on editing that next chapter so stay tuned! 
> 
> I hope I can get back to my regular posting schedule, but I had some additional ideas for intermediate chapters that weren't in my original outline of this fic or in the movie so I'm experimenting a lot with that. (Lots of extra bonus Ness goodness if I can make that work, but we'll see.) Updates on this fic might be a bit slower from here, but rest assured that I won't abandon this fic. I'll push through until the end.

Schmidt is lying awake in bed staring at the ceiling. Another night not being able to sleep because his mind keeps running through his life, all the bad choices he’s made, everything he isn’t. He thinks about going over to Elizabeth’s house but he’s already been there three nights this week and he doesn’t want to come off as too clingy, doesn’t want her to get sick of him. Maybe he should go down to the bar, find some other vacuous girl who he doesn’t have to remember the name of, get lost down the rabbit hole of booze and sex, but he doesn’t really want to come up with more reasons to hate himself tonight. 

He wonders fleetingly what Nick has been up to. Schmidt hasn’t seen him much this summer. Nick always used to hang out at the bar or in town with the guys after he moved back, but he stopped doing that as much this summer. Nick was vague about it when Schmidt asked him about it, telling him he’s just been hanging out at home because he needed a break from the guys and the bar scene, talking about maybe going back to law school or finding a new job in the city. Nick has seemed really happy lately whenever Schmidt has seen him and that makes Schmidt nervous because he thinks that means Nick is getting his life together and thinking about leaving town again, leaving Schmidt behind. 

He likes having Nick around. Whenever he feels bad about his life, it always makes him feel better thinking that they would always be in each other’s lives, that he would always be able to go into town or over to Nick’s house and find him there. Nick is one of the few people in Schmidt’s life who gets all the reasons he dropped out of college without him having to get into all the messy details of it, and doesn’t judge him for it. Neither of their lives is a glowing success by any measure, but as long as they have each other, it still seems like a pretty good life. But Schmidt knows that Nick was always supposed to make it Out There so Schmidt has to let him go even if it means leaving himself all alone, some loser in this small town without his best friend.

\----

Schmidt thinks he hears the pitter-patter of feet skittering across the roof. _Damn rats._ He imagines them clawing their way into the house bringing in blood-sucking fleas and ticks and germs and disease and it makes his skin crawl. Their house is old and falling apart so it’s hard to keep all the wildlife out, but Schmidt tries his damndest. It always felt like something he could do to protect his home and his family, especially when he felt so helpless after his dad left. He still gets a touch of OCD about that when he’s feeling anxious, even though he knows he’s just fighting all the imaginary monsters in his head. It’s 2AM so he knows he should just ignore it, let Future Schmidt deal with it in the morning, but he can’t sleep anyway so he sighs and decides that he might as well deal with it now. 

He gets up and goes to his bedroom window to peer outside. There’s a full moon out tonight so he can see across the entire backyard without having to turn on any lights. He turns his head and sees Jess on the roof with her back to him and that confuses him. He knows Jess is scared of heights so she would never willingly go out on the roof like that. She’s only wearing a thin tank top and jeans and his big brother instinct makes him want to open his window and lean out to yell at her to go put on a jacket because it gets chilly here at night. The moonlight streaks highlights through her raven hair and gives her pale skin an ethereal glow. He thinks he might still be asleep and dreaming so he pinches himself to make sure. _Nope, awake._ He watches her walk across the roof to the oak tree outside her window and climb nimbly down the branches. She never hesitates so he thinks she’s been doing it for a while. The hairs stand up on Schmidt’s neck and the backs of his arms. _Trouble._

He knew something was up with her. She’s been sleeping a lot during the day like she’s been staying up all night and she has stopped complaining about all his rules and about not being allowed to go into town. He’d been complacent since the bonfire, thinking Elizabeth knocked some sense into her, but evidently not. Jess has always been a rule-follower so he doesn’t know where this rebellious streak has suddenly come from. He guesses it was bound to happen sooner or later, even though he’s tried really hard to be a good big brother and nip all of that in the bud. 

He sneaks downstairs and out the back door to follow her. 

\---

He always stays a few steps behind her, out of view. She walks to the park and he trails her through the trees. When she reaches the park, she heads for the picnic benches. There is someone sitting at the picnic benches but Schmidt can’t make out who it is. The area is thrown into shadow. Schmidt steps farther out from behind the trees to get a better look. _It’s Nick._ That doesn’t compute in Schmidt’s brain and he thinks he must be mistaken. But the guy sitting on the benches rubs his index fingers and his thumbs together in that way Nick always does when he’s thinking and it is unmistakably Nick. Schmidt sees Nick’s face light up when he sees Jess and he stands when Jess approaches him. He cups Jess’s face with his hands and kisses her. 

Schmidt runs out from behind the trees and angrily shoves Nick back away from Jess. Nick’s face is surprised, but he recovers quickly. “Schmidt! Schmidt, don’t freak out…” Nick says putting up his hands in a conciliatory gesture, trying to calm Schmidt down. Jess pulls on his arms but he pushes her off of him. 

“You fucking snake! My own sister, Nick? How could you go behind my back and do this to me? I trusted you! We’re supposed to be best friends.”

“We _are_ best friends, Schmidt. This isn’t what it looks like.”

“Are you seriously going to use that line on me?! What it _looks_ like is you are trying to fuck my sister.”

“It isn’t like that, Schmidt. We haven’t done anything yet. We’re in a relationship.”

Schmidt scoffs at that. “You don’t do relationships, Nick. I know you. This is some sort of sick game to you, just like all the other girls. You have all the other guys in on it too? Do you have a pool running on who can get her to sleep with them first?”

“It’s not like that, Schmidt. This doesn’t have anything to do with the other guys; they don’t know anything. It’s just me and her. I’m in love with her.”

“You’re not in love with her, Nick. You’re just done fucking every other girl in this town so you’re going after her.”

“Don’t fucking tell me how to feel, Schmidt. I love her. It just happened and I’m sorry.”

“You're a lying son of a bitch, Nick. You planned this. From that first second you met her, you were going after her. I knew something was going on between you two that first day, but I thought, 'Hey, this guy is my best friend, the person I trust most in the entire fucking world, and he wouldn't screw me over.' But I was wrong, wasn't I, Nick? You’re not sorry. You’re just sorry you got caught.”

Nick sets his jaw defensively. “You’re right, Schmidt. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I’m not sorry that I’m with her.”

Schmidt looks at this guy standing in front of him and he realizes he doesn't know him at all. This isn't Nick, his friend, the person he trusts most in the entire world. This is someone who has hurt him, betrayed him, come after his family. He doesn't know who _this_ Nick is, but he sure as hell doesn't like him. In fact, he _hates_ him, hates this stranger who has taken the place of his best friend. Schmidt, who has never gotten into a physical fight in his entire life, feels the rage inside him boil over and he balls up his fist and hits Nick with a vicious right hook. 

Nick falls backwards to the ground. He cringes, holding the left side of his face. It hurt, but Nick is more stunned than in actual pain. He probably deserved that, but he didn’t think Schmidt was actually going to hit him. Schmidt’s not a violent guy. He’s the type of guy who can’t even kill bugs in his own house, but always captures and releases them outside. Nick has never seen Schmidt this mad at anything before. He’s met Best Friend Schmidt and Responsible Schmidt and now he’s met Pissed-Off Schmidt too. And evidently Pissed-Off Schmidt knows how to throw a punch. He can feel his cheek throbbing, the beginnings of the shiner forming.

Jess gasps; her hands go up to cover her mouth. _“Schmidt…!”_ she says reproachfully. She runs over to Nick to help him up. 

“We’re not friends anymore, Nick,” Schmidt says to him coldly. 

Schmidt looks off to the side. “I can’t even look at you right now, Jess,” he says angrily, his voice shaking with barely contained rage. “I warned you about him. You’re 18 now and I can’t stop you. Apparently, you know everything about everything and can make all your own decisions. Don’t come crying to me when he breaks your heart.” 

Schmidt stalks off and leaves them alone in the park. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is a reference to the Dandy Warhols' song ["We Used To Be Friends"](https://youtu.be/Bm1g5Yg0hUw) AKA _The Veronica Mars_ theme song.


	14. Bare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay, dear readers! At least this is a really long chapter to make up for it at least. :) It did end up being 3000+ words anyway, but it's one continuous scene so I thought it worked better in one chapter than splitting it into multiple chapters. Hope it was worth the wait!

Jess takes Nick home with her. Schmidt isn’t there; Nick knew he wouldn’t be. Schmidt is probably down at the bar or holed up somewhere getting shitfaced. It’s what Nick always does when something is bothering him and he wants to avoid dealing with it. _Drinking to forget. That’s his sweet spot._ He smiles ruefully to himself; they are too similar. 

He sits on the edge of Jess’s bed as she takes care of him. She gingerly touches his black eye and he winces slightly. 

_Man, who knew Schmidt had *that* in him? They’ve fought before, but Nick realizes that he’s never been on Schmidt’s bad side before. Everything they have ever fought over before has just been petty shit that could be smoothed over with a beer and a few days apart soothing their bruised egos. In all the time they have known each other, Schmidt has never been truly, genuinely mad at him. This is uncharted territory for them; Pissed-Off Schmidt is unpredictable and therefore terrifying._

Jess sits next to him on the bed and gently holds an ice pack to his bruised cheek. “He loves me, I swear,” he jokes weakly. She holds his hand. They sit in silence for several minutes, lost in their own thoughts.

\---

This is the first time he’s actually been inside Jess’s bedroom. He looks around the room imagining her living her life in this space, imagining what her life is like when he’s not around. She’s tried to spruce up the plain white walls with colorful artwork: reprints of famous paintings, posters from obscure bands, her own enthusiastic attempts at creating art in watercolor and charcoal and color pencil. A dream board is filled with magazine clippings of far-off places, aspirational quotes, photographs of ambitious women. There is a photo collage hanging above her bed, images of all her years in boarding school, her looking prim and proper in her uniform with her friends and classmates. In most of the photos, she isn’t looking directly at the camera but shyly looking away or off to the side. He thinks there is an edge of sadness to her smile in the photographs, but that’s probably just his imagination. 

There are framed photographs on her desk of her childhood, her and Schmidt and Joan and Gavin in happier times when they were all still together as a real family. She has a bookshelf filled with classic literature: _Pride and Prejudice, War and Peace, To Kill A Mockingbird._ A shelf overflowing with blue ribbons and trophies. He sees an array of colorful dresses in her half-opened closet and it makes him think fleetingly about taking her out on real dates so she can get all dressed up and has the chance to wear them someplace special. 

\---

He turns to her and gives her a crooked half-smile. “That definitely didn’t go the way I hoped it would. I didn’t want him to find out that way, catch us sneaking around in the middle of the night like we’re doing something wrong, like this is something to be ashamed of instead of an actual relationship. It was my fault; I should have told him sooner, but I kept putting it off because I kept waiting for the perfect time to tell him. I just wanted everything to stay the same, be with you exactly how we have been all summer and then have him still be my best friend like we have been forever ever since we were kids, but I was always going to have to choose. He was right to be mad at me. I didn’t even have the guts to do it; the universe did it for me.”

She puts the ice pack down on her night stand. When she turns back to him, her hands go up to cup his face.

“I know you wanted to do the right thing, Nick, but sometimes there just isn’t a ‘right’ choice where everyone wins and no one gets hurt. Schmidt’s my big brother and I didn’t want to hurt him, but he still thinks he needs to protect me from The Big Bad World like I’m still five years old. But I’m not a kid anymore. I’m part of this too. I have all my own thoughts and feelings about what I want out of life and he can’t just ignore them and shout them down because he doesn’t want me to grow up, because he can’t deal with the fact that I might make decisions that are different from the ones that he wants me to make. Schmidt has the right to feel however he wants, but he doesn’t have the right to tell us how to live our lives, to tell us whether we should be together or not. I didn’t want him to find out this way either, but I’m glad he knows now.”

Emotions flood his body; her words warm him all over. _She's choosing him back, even though he wasn’t brave enough to tell Schmidt about them directly like he had promised he would._ They gaze into each other’s eyes. He feels that intense connection to her chafe at his heart, something he never felt with anyone else, that indescribable feeling of being with her that words would always fail to capture. _Taking that punch was worth it to be with her. He’d suffer through a lot worse if she kept looking at him like that._

\---

She leans in to kiss him and he gently pushes her back against the bed. They end up making out lying next to each other in her bed with their bodies pressed together. She starts to undress him, unbuttoning his flannel and pushing it off his shoulders, grabbing the hem of the t-shirt he has on underneath and pulling it over his head. She’s just wearing a thin tank top so it almost feels like they are bare together. He runs his hands over her body but doesn’t make any move to take off her clothes, keeping that line there in case she needs him to back off. He’s incredibly turned on even though they aren’t really naked, just from all the buildup from being this close to her and not being able to touch her the way he really wants to. She’s pulling him even closer to her and they’re both panting, kissing each other frantically. She’s undoing his belt and unbuttoning his pants and it starts to feel serious. 

He doesn’t think this is how it should be yet, but he’s weak for her. Her hands are all over him, the heat of them all over his bare skin, and her body is curving into his in a way that feels familiar. It’s the path he has gone down before with dozens of other girls, so his hands running on autopilot mirror her movements and start to unbutton her pants too. She’s biting her lip looking into his eyes. Her eyes are large and blue and innocent, the pupils blown out from arousal. Seeing her body reacting to him, her physical want for him, turns him on even more. Lust is clouding his mind and making him stupid. It has shorted out his higher-level thinking so he can no longer connect actions to consequences. It’s all just a jumble of delicious sensations, electricity flowing through all the nerves and synapses in his brain setting all the cells in his body on fire. He’s just letting his subconscious lead him, letting himself be drawn into satisfying that primal animalistic hunger for her that exists inside of him, thinking about how good it would feel to do that with her, to give into it. 

But then she whispers, “I’ve never done this with anyone before,” and that wakes him up. That wakes up the rational part of his brain, the part that can actually make semi-good decisions, and makes him stop. No matter how badly he wants to do this with her, to have her completely bare beneath him and be able to touch her all over and have her touching him back, to have his body joined with hers skin to skin as close together as two people could ever possibly be, he can’t do this to her. _Not like this._

She sees him hesitate and she places her hands over his on her body to get him to continue. “It’s okay,” she whispers to him. “I trust you.” But he can’t do this with her if she doesn’t know the truth about him, if he hasn’t told her everything himself and she hasn’t heard the truth straight from him.

He refastens her pants to cover her back up and moves away from her so they aren’t touching. He sits on the edge of her bed with his back to her staring into the middle distance. “Maybe you shouldn’t, Jess. Schmidt was right about me. They all were.”

He turns back to look into her face. She’s watching him, patiently waiting for him to continue, to tell her what he thinks she needs to hear, not judging him or pushing him but waiting for him to come to her. Her eyes are soft with affection for him. He can feel kindness and compassion and understanding radiating out from her. She’s the embodiment of everything good and kind and decent in the world. She’s such a good person and she let him into her life. She _trusts_ him and he doesn’t think anyone has ever trusted him like that before in his entire life. He wants to be able to trust her back. He realizes he has never really trusted anyone completely, but he wants to trust her. Out of all the people he’s ever met in his entire life, he wants that with her. Just complete honesty. _To tell her everything, all his secrets, all the hidden parts of himself he never shares with anyone else._ He wants this to be real, a real relationship, and he can’t be with her if he doesn’t tell her everything. No secrets, no lies, none of these fake versions of himself that he makes up because it’s easier than dealing with his real life, with who he really is. He takes a deep breath and lets her in.

\---

“You want to know who I really am, Jess? I’m the guy everyone warns you about. You’ve probably heard all the rumors about me by now. They’re not just rumors; they’re all true. I’ve slept with a lot of girls. And I haven’t just been with a lot of other girls…I’ve hurt them and I didn’t care. I let them think we were in serious relationships to get them to sleep with me when it didn’t mean anything to me at all. I just cut them out of my life whenever I got bored of them or wanted to move on to someone else. I treated it like a game seeing what I could get them to believe, lying about everything until I no longer even knew what the truth was.” 

“I’m 24 and I’ve only been in one serious relationship my entire life up until now. I went to college and law school and tried to be someone different, someone decent, but I fucked it up like I fuck up everything in my life. Then after that, I just moved back to town and became who I used to be, the type of guy that would do bad things to other people and not care, choosing to be that guy because if I could have that kind of power over another person, maybe my life would mean something when I’m really just…empty inside. You think you haven’t lived, but I haven’t either. I don’t even know who the fuck I am.”

“Maybe I don’t know how to be a good person. Maybe I don’t know how to treat people, to be in a relationship with another person and be good to them without hurting them…But I want to be better for you, Jess. I want to be the guy you think I am, the kind of guy who deserves you.” 

He reaches out to cup her face with his hand. “I care about you, Jess, more than I’ve ever cared about anything in my entire life. If you want to ask me something, I’ll always tell you the truth. I’ll always be honest with you, even about the ugly stuff.” He pauses, looking into her eyes. “Is there something you want to ask me, Jess? You can ask me anything.” 

She looks at him, looks at his face, open and vulnerable to her. She needs to hear him say it, even if she doesn’t want to hear it at the same time. “Tell me about Julia, Nick…” 

He turns away from her again and squeezes his eyes shut in pain, but forces himself to turn back to look directly into her eyes. “I was her first in high school…I lied and told her I loved her so she would have sex with me. Then I never spoke to her again. I shouldn’t have done it. It was wrong and I didn’t care.” 

_God, how he hated himself for doing that afterwards, for using those words against Julia like they had meant nothing, twisting their meaning into something ugly and hollow. He had never done it again after that, not to any other girl, but he could never take it back. He could never face Julia again because he had done that; he had been ashamed. He had pretended not to know her to try and erase what he had done like the coward he was, but he had still done it. It was burned into the both of them. That was probably one of the worst things he’d ever done to a girl because he had been her first so she would always remember it that way. She had nothing to protect her from what he had done to her. She had given her tender young heart to him and he had crushed it into a thousand pieces because he had to take that from her, like he had a right to claim any part of her. And afterwards, she would never believe it when another guy told her that again. When the right guy would finally come along and say those words to her and he would actually mean them, she wouldn’t believe him because Nick had done that to her._

“She wasn’t your first?” 

“No…my first was an older girl in the woods at some party when I was 16. I don’t even remember most of it; I was completely wasted. We kept our clothes on and there were all those people who could just look over and see us. It was fast and it was awful and I don’t want that to be what your first time is.” 

“Don’t think you have to do things to keep me, Jess. We’ve only known each other a few months and you’re only 18. We don’t have to rush it. Do it when you’re ready and because you want to do it, not because you think that’s what I want you to do.”

“You want to ask me anything else, Jess?”

She shakes her head. Hearing about Julia was hard enough, hearing him confirm that all those bad things other people said about him were actually true. She doesn’t want to hear the rest of it, about all the other girls, although she knows she probably should. She should ask him if he’s still seeing other people. She thinks he would tell her the truth, but she doesn’t want to know if the answer is ‘yes,’ so she doesn’t ask.

He looks into her face, accepting him as he is, not judging him for all his past mistakes even though it hurts her.

“I was that guy, Jess, but I don’t want to be that guy anymore.” 

“Remember I told you that guys regret the girls they’ve been with too…and I do regret it, Jess. I’ve been with a lot of girls and I regret it because I have to tell you I didn’t treat them nice. I didn’t even treat them as people. I used them and I threw them away and I never cared about how I hurt them. And I’m telling you I did hurt them. I knew it the entire time and I didn’t stop myself from doing it. I did have choices and I didn’t make the right ones. I don’t want to treat you like that and I don’t know if I can make you believe that. And even as I’m telling you all of this stuff now about wanting to be better, I know I can’t actually promise you I’ll be better. They’re still just words, even though I really do mean them. So you can’t just give me your trust, Jess, because the person I am right now doesn’t deserve it. Make me earn it. I need to earn it so I can be better for you.”

\---

He refastens his pants and puts his clothes back on. He sits on the edge of her bed and looks down at the floor. 

“Maybe we shouldn’t see each other for a while, Jess.”

“You want to break up?” she asks in a small voice.

“What?” he asks in confusion, looking back at her on the bed. He runs what he said back through his head and realizes how that sounded. He takes her hand and presses his lips to the back of it. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, Jess. I don’t want to break up. I just think we should give Schmidt some time to cool off.”

He gets up and walks over to her desk for a pen. He scrawls his phone number on a scrap of paper on her desk. “I’ll call you every night and you can call me whenever you want.” He walks back over to the bed and presses the scrap of paper into her hand, closing her fingers over it. “This is going to be real, Jess. Schmidt’s our family and I wasn’t honest with him and I hurt him. We just need to let Schmidt have some space so he can work through it. If we want this to be real, then we have to deal with the real consequences too.” This is him growing up and accepting responsibility for his life, for his choices.

He cups her face and kisses her deeply. When he pulls back, he says with conviction looking directly into her eyes, “I love you, Jess. This is going to be real.” He goes to the window and lifts himself outside the frame. He walks out onto the roof. He turns back to look at her. He gazes at her face for several long seconds and she can see the emotions passing through his eyes before he turns away from her. He walks across the roof and descends the tree to go home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was probably the most difficult Nick Miller speech I've had to write so far. Pretty brutal to write, but I'm really happy with how it turned out. My initial drafts of this chapter made Nick too much of a good guy. I thought it was too early in his character arc for that to happen and it didn't feel honest to the character. I had to throw some more moral ambiguity in there; Nick's trying really hard to be a good guy, but he has to face all his past mistakes before he can get to that point. That moral ambiguity also plays better with Jess's arc in the narrative. Nick does kind of have her on a pedestal so he has to learn to see her as a real, flawed person as well if he wants a real relationship with her.


End file.
